The first time Placido Domingo stood on the stage of Baltimore's Lyric Opera House, he sang. When he returns on Tuesday, after 43 years, he won't open his mouth.
Instead, the eminent Spanish-born singer, who has performed at all of the world's leading opera houses and who, with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, rocked the global market in 1990 as part of the storied Three Tenors phenomenon, will be on the podium. He will conduct Puccini's Turandot with soloists, orchestra and chorus of Washington National Opera.
Domingo, who makes most workaholics look like shirkers, is general director of that company, as well as the Los Angeles Opera.
The Baltimore appearance is something of a bittersweet occasion.
When the Baltimore Opera Company went out of business earlier this season, the Lyric lost a longtime, valued tenant. The theater's management began to look around for other attractions to book in the theater, and that search led south to Washington.
"I am very pleased that we are going to Baltimore," Domingo says. "But I feel terribly sorry about what happened to our neighbor company. These are difficult times. In Washington, we have problems, too, of course."
This is the last week of Washington National Opera's Turandot at the Kennedy Center. Domingo, who branched into conducting in the 1970s, was already scheduled to lead the closing night in Washington on Thursday, taking over from Keri-Lynn Wilson.
This performance will put the sound of lyrical opera back into the Lyric in a big way, but not the sights. The distinctive sets and costumes being seen in D.C. to conjure up the ancient Chinese setting of Turandot's plot won't be brought to Charm City.
"Actually, I prefer stage versions. That is so much more of what opera is about," Domingo admits from Paris, where he has been performing the title role in Franco Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac. "But it is much better to have a concert version of an opera than not an opera at all."
The expense of trucking the whole Washington production to Baltimore would have been formidable, and rather pointless - the Lyric's stage area is too small to handle this particular Turandot, the orchestra pit too small to handle all the musicians the company uses to deliver the aural goods of Puccini's extravagant score.
