Also: “Icons of Austria – An EU Ballot” and “The Culture Week” – on June 9th from 9:05 a.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – On the occasion of the upcoming European Football Championship, the “matinee” on Sunday, June 9, 2024, at 9:05 a.m. on ORF 2 will show “The success story ‘Three Tenors’ – Triumphs, Tears and Royalties” about the world opera stars Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, who in 1990 gave a unique concert for the first time as a singing trio in front of the historic backdrop of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome on the occasion of the Football World Cup in Italy and thus changed the world of classical music. “An EU ballot” is then the focus of the short series “Icons of Austria” (10:35 a.m.) of the same name, which coincides with EU election day: The film looks back on the referendum on Austria’s accession to the EU, which was approved with 66.6 percent approval in 1994 and, among other things, explores why the population’s skepticism towards the European community of states has grown since then. The ORF cultural morning presented by Teresa Vogl ends with “The Culture Week” (10:50 a.m.) with current reports and tips.
“The success story ‘Three Tenors’ – triumphs, tears and royalties” (9:05 a.m.)
It was the most successful classical concert: more than 30 years ago, on July 7, 1990, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras appeared for the first time as the “Three Tenors” together with conductor Zubin Mehta. With the concert on the occasion of the 1990 World Cup in the Caracalla Baths in Rome, they made history and made classical music popular in a new way: 1.6 billion people worldwide watched this performance on television, which became the largest event in the history of the world classical music and helped it achieve an extraordinary boom.
The film by Jean-Alexander Ntivyihabwa, made in 2020, tells of the background to the concert, its continuation in Los Angeles and the emotional highlights of the extraordinary event. Three decades later, the protagonists in the documentary look back on their greatest success. They review the time in detailed encounters. For the first time, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Zubin Mehta and the widow of Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007, Nicoletta Mantovani, talk about their rivalries and friendships, their spectacular contract poker, Carreras’ fight against leukemia and life as opera stars.
Impresario Mario Dradi, “inventor” and manager of the “Three Tenors”, provides previously unseen and deeply emotional backstage insights. Other world stars who accompanied the “Three Tenors” on their journey, as well as label bosses and concert promoters, will have their say. The film does not ignore how far the influence of these superstars extends into the popular world today: without their work, surprise successes like that of “Britain’s Got Talent” winner Paul Potts, who captivated the whole world with his interpretation, would be unthinkable by Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma”.