MUSIC REVIEW : Jose Carreras Repays a Personal Debt in Seattle

He came back. He sang. He conquered.

The drama at the Seattle Opera House on Thursday involved an opera star. But the event wasn’t an opera.

Actually, the plot resembled a soap opera. It stretched credibility right up to the seemingly happy end. But this was non-fiction.

This was a drama of bravery bolstered by idealism and sensitivity. This, if you will, was the Jose Carreras story.

Carreras, whose popularity places him right after Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo in the international supertenor sweepstakes, was stricken late in 1987 with acute lymphocytic leukemia. The prognosis was not encouraging.

After consulting medical experts in his native Barcelona, Carreras decided to undergo the rigors of an autologous bone-marrow transplant at a pioneering facility in Seattle, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. When he was released, 14 months ago, he promised to return to sing a benefit recital for the institution that apparently had saved his life.

Thursday night, with a little help from the Seattle Opera, he made good on that promise. Having ventured a dozen concert appearances in Europe, he chose this city for his American comeback. Engagements in New York and Washington are scheduled later this month.

No one knew quite what to expect when Carreras made his brisk, self-effacing entrance. Everyone was prepared to be indulgent. Standing ovations and floral tributes were foregone conclusions.

The hero, now 42, looked a bit gaunt and pale. His courtly manner was contradicted by a scruffy Don Johnson beard-in-progress, cultivated no doubt to camouflage a recent bout with chicken pox. Even with the leukemia in remission, his immune system remains severely compromised.

When he began to sing, it became clear to 3,000 adoring fans--many of whom had paid $100 for a ticket--that Carreras would require no apologies. This program would be an artistic experience, not just a sentimental exercise.

If anything, his voice sounded fresher, brighter, more sensuous and more lustrous than it had been just before his illness. This was one advantageous byproduct of the enforced period of rest.

In the mid-1980s, Carreras had confounded even his most doting admirers by assuming heavyweight roles that threatened severe vocal damage. Having persuaded the lyric tenor to undertake Radames in “Aida,” Herbert von Karajan next wanted him to attempt an even more dubious challenge: Verdi’s Otello. The result could have been disastrous, a replay of the pathetic Giuseppe di Stefano saga.

On this blissful occasion, Carreras certainly did not sound like a tenor in any kind of trouble. Wisely, he avoided arias and concentrated on a relatively easy agenda of songs. Deftly accompanied by Lorenzo Bavaj, he performed them exquisitely.

Apart from one smashing B-flat at encore time, he avoided stratospheric flights. No matter. He sang with abiding pathos, disarming charm, considerable finesse.

A critical churl might have noted a weak trill in the bel-canto repertory or some distortions of the French idiom in obligatory melodies of Faure and Duparc. Such passing blemishes seemed irrelevant, however, in light of Carreras’ expressive eloquence.

It will be impossible to forget the suavity with which he delineated Bellini’s “Malinconia” or the perfectly tapered pianissimo phrases with which he ennobled the sentiment of Tosti’s “Ideale.” Few singers can equal his poise and passion in music of Turina and Falla.

His command of the telling nuance and his ability to spin endlessly graceful legato phrases elevates even a vulgar indulgence to high art. He can turn a simple canzone such as Tosti’s “Non t’amo piu” into a study of bittersweet ardor.

To close the formal portion of the program, Carreras offered some Puccini teasers: “Solo e amore,” which foreshadows the “Boheme” quartet, and “Menti all’avviso,” which invokes “Donna non vidi mai” in “Manon Lescaut.” These subtle previews served as intriguing down payments on his return to bona fide opera.

May it be soon. May it even take him to Los Angeles. He has come a long way since he sang a cautious Cavaradossi to the steely Tosca of Birgit Nilsson at the Music Center in 1974.