Plácido Domingo, who celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year, has played a special part in many Royal Opera Seasons since his debut at Covent Garden in 1971. His extraordinary dramatic presence and peerless musicality have been highlights each time he has returned. This Thursday 27th and Sunday 30th October there is a celebration of one of the greatest dramatic interpreters and voices of our time with acts from three great Verdi operas that have special significance in his career.

In the title roles of Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra and Otello, Domingo portrays three intense characters driven to extreme actions – in turn doomed, heroic and jealous beyond reason. The baritone roles of the first two are recent additions to his already extremely wide repertory, while the concluding role of Otello has become one of his most legendary portrayals and a symbol of the union of drama and music with which Domingo’s name is synonymous.

With him are world-class performers all under the direction of Antonio Pappano, Music Director of The Royal Opera, and himself an acclaimed interpreter of Verdi. Ailyn Pérez  will perform Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda opposite Francesco Meli’s Duke of Mantua. In Simon Boccanegra, Marina Poplavskaya will interpret Amelia and PaataBurchuladze the role of Jacopo Fiesco. Domingo’s Otello will be paired with Marina Poplavskaya’s Desdemona and Jonathan Summers’ Iago.

The Opus Arte catalogue features Domingo’s performance as Otello at the Royal Opera House in the same production with Kiri te Kanawa’s Desdemona and Sergei Leiferkus’ Iago under the baton of Sir George Solti. A DVD of Great Opera Arias taken from a Gala at the Royal Opera House in 1996 shows him opposite soprano Angela Gheorghiu and fellow tenor Roberto Alagna in repertoire as varied as Mozart’s Don Giovanni to Gounod’s Faust. The 1993 Winter Gala Concert from the stage of the Royal Opera House sees a stellar array of the world’s greatest artists celebrating the music of Tchaikovsky –with Plácido Domingo, alongside Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Kiri Te Kanawa, and prima ballerina Darcey Bussell. Recent additions to Domingo’s wide repertoire include Handel’s Tamerlano  and the male lead in Torroba’s Zarzuela Luisa Fernanda both taken from Madrid’ Teatro Real.

Domingo is one of the most-recorded tenors in history with an extremely wide repertoire from tenor roles in Verdi, e.g. Carlos Kleiber’s acclaimed Traviata and Bizet – Abbado’s Carmen with Teresa Berganza to the big Wagner tenor roles like Tristan – with Nina Stemme under Pappano.