A Comeback Against the Odds

Jose Carreras had every reason to be tired. And, yes, he admitted that he was.

The night before, he had sung an emotional, tumultuously acclaimed recital that comprised 25 songs in three languages. Even after the program ended--with “Granada,” of course--standing ovations and floral tributes brought him back for endless bows.

Then there was a reception backstage. He offered personal greetings to an effusive stream of fans, friends, colleagues and even a rival or two.

The fans and friends, not incidentally, included a disproportionate number of nurses and doctors. They had come from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the beneficiary of this extraordinary concert. The top ticket had cost $100.

Speight Jenkins--general director of the Seattle Opera, which co-sponsored the gala--said he literally had to pull the tenor away from the admiring throng. Carreras finally got to bed at 4 a.m.

The next morning, he arose at an hour that would seem remarkably early even if one didn’t happen to be a quintessential Spaniard. This quintessential Spaniard still had to face a battery of photographers, television crews and reporters. And tonight he was scheduled to host yet another reception, this one open to the general public and accompanied by a $75-a-plate fund-raising dinner.

It was show time, non-stop. The schedule would have been grueling for any artist. It must have been especially grueling for this one, but Carreras seemed to take the pressures in stride.

He exuded good grace at every appearance. Though weary, he seemed to be a happy man. He was, after all, a survivor. For the moment, at least, he had beat the odds.

A year ago he underwent debilitating treatment for acute lymphocytic leukemia. His frenzied career was halted for 13 months while he literally fought for his life. After enduring the traumas of an autologous bone-marrow transplant here at the Hutchinson Center, he vowed to return when he was able to sing again.

He made good that vow last Thursday. Seattle became the first American city to celebrate his remission. By official medical definitions, it is too early to speak of a cure.

At the same time, Seattle became the first American city to celebrate his bravery and idealism, not to mention his renewed artistry. Additional “comeback” recitals were scheduled--and later rescheduled--for New York and Washington, D.C.. At time of writing, the specific dates were jeopardized by a reported ear-infection.

Initially reserved and courtly, eventually warm and gregarious, Carreras receives a visitor in a borrowed hotel suite. He deems his own quarters “inappropriate,” it is explained, because the maid has not yet made her rounds.

At 42, he still looks boyish. His big, dark eyes flash with ardent intensity. A new gauntness makes his sensitive features seem all the more expressive. His manner reflects the mellowness of someone who has conquered great pain. Still, there is nothing vulnerable about him.

Carreras obviously is a fighter.

“I feel fine,” he insists with a shrug. “Really fine.”

He wants to brush aside any doubts about his health. He all but dares one not to believe him.

He is wearing a little make-up. It may be for the sake of the nearby TV cameras. It may be an attempt to cover up some lingering traces of the chicken pox that nearly forced an untimely cancellation of his return.

He says he is pleased about the way the comeback recital went.

“It was a genuine event,” he states in carefully modulated, perfectly fluent, slightly accented English. “It was an event on both sides of the proscenium. I felt affection from the audience. It was good to be in a place where there was little prejudgment.

“In New York or Vienna or Milano there would have been another kind of expectation. There the audience might be testing me. There they know me better as an artist. Here I am a fresh experience.”

He had sung in Seattle only once before. That was in a similar concert situation 11 years ago.

He understands the extramusical interest that surrounds any appearance he undertakes these days. Nevertheless, he wants to be judged as an artist, not as a victim.

“I hate sentimental responses,” he says. “I don’t want pathos and sympathy. I know some people will applaud me at first out of kindness. That will not continue unless I sing well.

“I cannot go on stage not caring. I have to be like before. I am very emotional about this. I am happy to say that I get a very high fee. If I cannot sing well, I will stop.”

He sang very well, indeed, on Thursday. The audience thought so. The press thought so. If anything, the enforced period of rest had rejuvenated his voice.

“What other tenor takes off a whole year at the height of his career?” he asks with a self-mocking smile.

“I have had a hard treatment, it is true. It has changed everything in my life--my perspectives, my values. Now I just want to go back on the stage and do as well as I can.”

Carreras claims he never doubted that he would be able to go back.

“Of course, we were worried that the treatment might affect the mucous membranes,” he admits, “and that this would hurt the vocal cords. Luckily, it was not the case.

“I was convinced all along that I would be able to sing again. That is why I avoided total anesthesia. I wanted no interference with the throat.

“At times, the doctors told me only to talk, but there was never any difference with my speaking voice. A singer knows when he talks how his singing voice functions. I knew mine was functioning.”

His range, he says, is what it always was.

“I can still sing a high D. I sing it at home in the bathroom. I will again sing the high C in some operas. ‘Butterfly,’ ‘Ballo in Maschera’ . . . .”

For a few moments, the conversation strays from leukemia. The subject turns to high notes. It is a subject dear to tenors. Carreras seems to welcome the digression.

Why does he, like most colleagues, avoid the high C in “La Boheme”?

“Because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t sleep the night before.”

Carreras brought ecstasy to operatic connoisseurs when in Herbert von Karajan’s “Carmen” he sang the Flower Song exactly as Bizet intended--with a whispered, pianissimo B-flat at the climax.

Why, one wonders, did he not bring the same dynamic illumination to Radames’ “Celeste Aida.” If one trusts Verdi, this aria should have an equally quiet, reflective ending.

He pauses and looks sheepish.

“I recorded ‘Aida’ in 1979. At that time I had not yet learned the secret of a pianissimo B-flat. The ‘Carmen’ with Karajan came three years later.”

Karajan was a major influence in the Carreras career. Some might say a bad influence, for he encouraged the lyric tenor to attempt dangerously dramatic roles.

“I once said I would sing Micaela for Karajan if he asked me. He is very persuasive, and he inspires one to do things that might be impossible with other conductors.

“I am a tenor. Tenors always repeat the same mistakes.”

He chuckles, mischievously.

“But Radames does not interest me now.”

And what about Verdi’s Otello, a potential heavyweight folly for a lightweight tenor? Karajan reportedly had this project in mind for Carreras a few years ago.

“No, no, no no, no,” he objects, feigning horror. “I never had a formal offer. I don’t think I have the right voice for it. It was all very vague, very unlikely.”

Carreras’ relationship with another superstar conductor attracted considerable attention a few years ago. PBS cameras captured what appeared to be a major confrontation with Leonard Bernstein during a recording session for “West Side Story.” The tenor is eager to put the incident in perspective.

“I was not at all unhappy. I had not one complaint from the human side. What you saw just happened to be a difficult moment. I was frustrated with the time limits dictated by the union. I was so nervous. The tension was bad. Little things can explode.

“The clock said I had just 10 minutes to record ‘Maria’ with Leonard Bernstein. Imagine.

“In general, the collaboration was very satisfying. When I was sick, Lenny sent me many letters. ‘Even if we are TV enemies,’ he joked in one letter, ‘I send you all my affection.’ ”

Although he never gave up the idea of resuming his career, Carreras found his priorities severely tested during his darkest hours.

“There were long periods of isolation. Six weeks in Barcelona. Eight weeks here. Sometimes I couldn’t even talk. For three weeks I couldn’t even eat. There was much medication and, during the operation when they removed the marrow, much pain.

“After the transplant, I got 3,000 calories a day intravenously, through a tube. I dreamed at night about fantastic things like orange juice and Perrier water.

“I learned during this time what was important in life. The doctors try to mentalize you that everything you are doing you are doing because you have a chance. Even if the chance is very low, one in a million, it is worth the fight.”

Carreras pauses. He measures his words carefully. Self-pity does not seem to be part of his emotional repertory.

“I do not want to sound dramatic. But when that light at the end of the tunnel flickered the most, I did not think about losing my career. It did not matter. When I thought, ‘This is the end,’ what hurt most was the possibility that I might not see my children grow.”

Carreras has two children. Alberto is 15, Julia 10. He says that both have coped well with his crisis.

“They are lucky,” he explains, “because they have a wonderful mother. They did not miss a day of school. They passed their examinations. They had the right, positive attitude. She gave it to them. It helped me.”

A man of Carreras’ fame and resources could have chosen any hospital anywhere in the world for his treatment. Why Seattle?

“I came here for two reasons. My doctors in Barcelona said they could do the transplant there. They do three or four every week. But one of them had trained here, and was willing to come here with me.

“He told me this is the foremost cancer center in the world. They have the most experience with cases like mine, and at the time they had an experimental drug--it is available everywhere now--that could help me.

“The other reason, less important, was personal and not medical. I wanted to get away, to go to a place where I could have some privacy. The pressures in Europe were terrible. There was too much fuss, too much publicity.”

Carreras suffered severe weight and hair loss during his hospitalization. His alarmingly emaciated state was chronicled in photographs and news stories at the time.

“I didn’t care at all,” he recalls with matter-of-fact disdain. “It was such a victory just to be able to go out and see people. I had no problem presenting myself to people. They understood.

“No hair? How could that matter? If that were my only problem!”

It should be noted that the hair has, apart from a certain natural recession at the temples, grown back. Apart from a few silver threads, it has grown back black.

Carreras now looks forward to a full but not terribly hectic schedule. He is slowing down.

He plans a return to the operatic stage this July in his native Barcelona. The challenge will be something new for him: Cherubini’s “Medea.” Montserrat Caballe will sing the title role. Thereafter, he wants to do no more than 35 performances a year, dividing his time among La Scala, Vienna, London, various locales in the States and--”for sentimental reasons”--Spain.

He already has penciled in a special Los Angeles concert for April, 1990. It will be a benefit for his own, newly formed leukemia foundation. Placido Domingo, his friend, countryman and potential rival, will conduct while Carreras sings.

What about vice versa?

“I am not a conductor,” counters an emphatic Carreras.

Neither is Domingo, suggests a waggish visitor.

Carreras laughs but volunteers no comment. He is loyal to his loyal colleague. He also is a diplomat.

During his illness, not incidentally, Domingo made several visits to the Seattle hospital. Luciano Pavarotti constantly sent get-well messages.

Some tenors actually like and support one another.

Some of Carreras’ admirers were disappointed that he chose a recital rather than an opera for his return vehicle.

“One needs to be fit physically for opera,” he counters. “The acting, the costumes, the pacing, the tessitura all can be very strenuous. That is why I decided instead to give concerts at first.

“But which really is more difficult? To sing ‘Tosca,’ where the tenor has 25 minutes of music, or a full recital that has 25 songs--25 little dramas, each with its own atmosphere, its own problems and its own poetry?

“In a way, the recital is more difficult. It exposes one more. It requires more concentration.”

He could, of course, have included some popular arias in his recital program. The closest he got was three songs that Puccini wrote while in his teens and later adapted in operas.

“I do not like opera with a piano,” he explains, “and I cannot do ‘Die Winterreise.’ That is not my cup of tea.”

That last point is debatable. Carreras grins appreciatively, but wants no debate.

“I concentrate on popular things. I have an opportunity here to build a special program. There is a lot of repertory where I can show my possibilities.”

Jose Carreras is showing his possibilities in many ways.