“世界三大男高音”之一、西班牙歌剧演唱家卡雷拉斯近日在接受英国《泰晤士报》采访时宣布退出歌剧舞台。现年62岁的卡雷拉斯自1987年起就饱受白血病的折磨，虽然经过多方治疗后重返舞台，但其身体状况已使其无法在歌剧中担任重要角色。上世纪90年代初，卡雷拉斯、帕瓦罗蒂和多明戈齐聚意大利罗马，首次联袂举办了演唱会。“世界三大男高音”因而走进了人们的视野。此后，他们的唱片和巡演也取得了空前的商业成功。

Spanish opera singer Jose Carreras, one of the famed "Three Tenors²" along with Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, announced his retirement³ from opera in a newspaper interview published on Friday.

Carreras, 62, who thrived as a performer after surviving leukemia, told the British newspaper The Times that he could no longer withstand the rigors⁴ of performing principal roles, unamplified, to opera houses.

"If I can do concert recitals⁵, adapting the repertoire⁶ to my needs, then no problem, that's good enough," Carreras told The Times. "But with operas, unless the right circumstances come up, my career is done."

In the early 1990s, Carreras formed "The Three Tenors" with fellow Spaniard Domingo and Italy's Pavarotti. Their recordings⁷ and concert tours opened up opera to a larger audience and were a huge commercial success.

Pavarotti died in 2007 after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer. With Carreras's retirement, Domingo is the sole opera performer left in the original trio, whose first performance was for soccer's World Cup in Italy in 1990.

"We were, without being presumptuous⁸, the most popular tenors of the day. We did (Italia 90) in a very genuine and spontaneous way. We thought, let's get together. We were all football fans," Carreras said in the interview.

The tenor¹ said his diagnosis⁹ of leukemia in 1987 was very difficult to handle.

"I have been very lucky to overcome this very serious disease with not many chances to survive. I remember this every day. The help from above is very important," he said.