Domingo Seeks to Cancel Opera Bookings, Sing Instead for Mexican Quake Relief

Opera singer Placido Domingo, who lost four relatives in Mexico’s devastating earthquakes last month, announced plans Saturday to cancel all scheduled appearances for the next year to raise funds for survivors of the disaster.

The Spanish-born tenor, who was taken to Mexico as a child, said he hopes to raise more than $8 million through concerts in large arenas to help re-house about 200 families who lived in a building that collapsed in the quake, killing his uncle’s family.

“I am asking every theater in the world to give me a year’s leave of absence, starting immediately,” said Domingo, one of opera’s most acclaimed tenors, in an interview carried in early editions of the Sunday Times of London.