Plácido Domingo

A legendary Spanish-Mexican tenor, Placido Domingo has been a leading opera star for over 50 years, was part of the biggest selling classical album of all time and is even in the Guinness Book of Records for giving 101 curtain calls during an 80-minute standing ovation after a performance of 'Othello.' The son of two singers, he was born in Madrid but moved to Mexico at age 7, where his parents produced and performed zarzuelas (a type of Spanish opera or musical theatre). Domingo (real name Jose Placido Domingo Embil) started taking part in his parents' shows and played piano, before studying formal voice training at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City where he was taking lead roles by the age of 16.

He joined the National Opera of Mexico in 1959 as a tenor and by the mid-1960s had played across the world and was starring in the New York Opera as Don Rodrigo, a burly King of Spain who becomes a penniless hermit. As his reputation grew, he became recognised as one of opera's finest tenors, playing 147 different roles and giving nearly 4,000 performances; he also crossed over into the pop world with albums 'Perhaps Love', 'Save Your Nights for Me' and 'Be My Love'.

Alongside Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras as The Three Tenors, Domingo became hugely important in bringing classical music to the masses during the 1990s. After a show together in Rome marking Carreras' recovery from leukaemia, they became closely associated with the FIFA World Cup and in 1994 their concert at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, to coincide with the final, drew a television audience of 1.3 billion. Their album 'Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti: The Three Tenors in Concert' went on to sell over ten million copies and win a Grammy Award and the trio became huge international stars.

Domingo also worked as an acclaimed conductor and in more recent years collaborated with Carlos Santana on the album 'Shamen' and lent his voice to the animated films 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' and 'The Book of Life'.