TV REVIEW : Shedding a Bit of Light on Carreras

Insights into the artistry of tenor Jose Carreras remain few despite two new portraits of the man who was nearly killed by leukemia in 1987 when he was 40.

On PBS, the documentary “Jose Carreras: A Life Story” will be broadcast at 9 tonight on KCET Channel 28 and at 6 p.m. Sunday on KPBS Channel 15. In bookshops, the autobiography, “Jose Carreras: Singing from the Soul” (YCP Publications: $27.95) awaits the reader.

Both portray the life of a warm, dignified, courageous and remarkable singer, but neither gets much beneath the surface.

The two portraits cover the same ground, with the book serving almost at times as a working script for the television program. But certain discrepancies do occur. The documentary, sanctimoniously directed by Chris Hunt, announces that Carreras’ “whole life has been a tale of victory against the odds.” Well, maybe.

Admittedly, that is true of his fight for life after being diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. But elsewhere the book paints a life of less struggle.

To be sure, his father, who fought on the losing side in the Spanish Civil War, was unable to continue teaching after Franco took power. But musically, Carreras’ early life seems blessed and easy. After seeing Mario Lanza in the movie “The Great Caruso” when he was 6, he began imitating the tenor by singing the arias on his own. His talent quickly drew attention, and a year later he made a national radio debut, during which he sang his favorite “Le donna e mobile” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto.”

(A phonographic recording was made shortly after and one of the delights of the documentary is to hear the 7-year-old Carreras singing the aria with gusto and expression.)

The career simply marched steadily on. The big tragedy of his young life was the death of his mother when he was 18. But he may have found comfort in the attention of soprano Montserrat Caballe who promoted his career. (He sang his first leading role--Gennaro in Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia”--opposite her when he was 23, and she remains a close friend and colleague.)

We see Carreras in recitals, concerts, operas and rehearsals. Testimonials flow from fellow tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, conductor Colin Davis and, of course, Caballe, among others. The only criticism, incidentally, comes from Carreras himself, who self-deprecatingly remarks about his trouble with high notes.

Oddly, after an opening montage that includes a shot of Carreras wearing a surgical mask, the documentary delays further mention of his illness for about 50 minutes and then deals with it rather rapidly.

The generally thin autobiography, on the other hand, virtually begins with the diagnosis and treatment, with Carreras saying it is only to give hope to others with the disease that he decided to forgo his coveted privacy and talk about his illness.

He covers the excruciating treatments and the unexpected life-threatening episode that occurred when the bone marrow he had received in a transplant suddenly stopped functioning. Only the availability of a newly developed wonder drug (GMCFS) saved his life.

Possibly because the book came out in German in 1989 and has been translated into English only this year, it contains no reference to the breakup of Carreras’ 20-year marriage, as does the documentary. On the other hand, the book refers only in passing to his recording Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” whereas the documentary shows a tense confrontation between him and Bernstein when they were recording the song “Maria.”

While the documentary does not have anything as silly as the book’s chapter on operas he’d take with him “if shipwrecked on a desert island,” neither does it make clear from what period of Carreras’ career most of the concert clips are taken.

The television program also attempts to put a quasi-political spin on his career by speaking of his developing a “particular interest” in “justice and political freedom” and therefore choosing heroic roles such as Giordano’s Andrea Chenier. But in his autobiography, Carreras speaks in generalities about loving democracy and adds that he watches politics “strictly as a ring-side observer.”

As for artistry, we learn that he is “a romantic man” and that when he sings, “my feelings are the driving force . . . then my mind takes over and guides me.” What we’re left with, essentially, is simply marveling at the extraordinary voice itself.

The last line of the documentary belongs to Carreras: “Not a very exciting life, honestly,” he says, with a shy smile. Unfortunately, that sums up both portraits pretty accurately.