“Rolando will play the postino and I will be Pablo Neruda,” Domingo says, smiling – the prospect is clearly a delight. And meanwhile, in partnership with the noted chef Richard Sandoval, Domingo has added to his curriculum vitae an involvement in an international chain of Mexican seafood restaurants.The Il Postino opera is planned for Los Angeles in 2009: “That might be a nice time to retire,” Domingo reflects, “but who knows…” With such adventures still ahead of him, it seems certain that Domingo will be as busy as ever for some time yet. How does he cope? “I just have a big passion and enthusiasm for what I do,” he says with a shrug “Otherwise, at this stage I wouldn’t be doing it I am immensely happy that I can carry on. Since I can, I am going to do it for a little while longer.”His next new project is as adventurous as anything he’s done to date: he will star in the world premiere of an opera by Tan Dun, The First Emperor, opening at the Met in New York on 21 December. A preview in The New York Times predicted that the work “will be unlike anything that has ever been seen or heard on the Metropolitan Opera stage”.Looking further ahead, the Mexican composer Daniel Catan is writing an opera based on the Italian film Il Postino specifically for Domingo and Villazon.

It’s been 13 years now and when you see the names of the singers who have come out of Operalia, it’s really amazing.”All this could have been lifetimes’ work for at least three people. He accepted a cameo role in the Tristan recording, the young sailor who sings the opening lines after the prelude, and he sang so beautifully – that was certainly a bonus and I thank him very much for doing it.” Operalia is still going strong, and, says Domingo, “every year the number of singers has grown. In 1993, he founded the Operalia competition for young singers: the winners have included the charismatic young bass-baritone Erwin Schrott, who has recently been packing a punch as Figaro in the David McVicar production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden; the Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, who went on to record the title role in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde with Domingo last year; and the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon – now a prot? of Domingo’s, he is the latest emerging superstar in the opera world and has been signed up by Deutsche Grammophon, following in Domingo’s footsteps.”He is a wonderful singer,” Domingo declares, “and we are very good friends. He is the general director of both the Washington National Opera and the Los Angeles Opera, where his personal charm and overwhelming charisma have certainly helped him in the American opera-house director’s inevitable role as fundraiser.But more important to him is helping the development of young singers. That says something: it says unfortunately how expensive is opera for some people – they would like to come and hear someone at these prices and I wish that they would do it more and more. Because opera is expensive; what can you do?”Domingo knows plenty about the cost of opera: as well as singing and conducting, he has become increasingly involved in opera-house administration over the years. “The atmosphere was unbelievable,” he says, “At the beginning it’s very impressive because you have the people so close And it takes you a little while to get used to that.

But you have to do it and then immediately you feel OK.” He was impressed by the number of young people in the audience, “but not only young people – people of all ages, and this was the first time they heard me. In singing during almost 34 years at Covent Garden and the Festival Hall, I meant to come to this very prestigious festival but I never did it, so I’m very happy.”He found it quite an experience. “I’m sorry that for years I was never able to do it, but it’s better late than never, no? So I’m lucky to make my debut You’d never think that it would be in something so popular. In the UK, after his sensational appearance as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in 1971, he quickly became a regular audience favourite at Covent Garden.Last year he appeared at the ROH as Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walk? the company’s performance of it at the Proms proved a historic occasion but marked, extraordinarily, Domingo’s very first Prom appearance. At that time he had just married for the second time, to Marta Ornelas, a young Mexican soprano with a penchant for Mozart; the pair met as students at the Mexico City Conservatory and went to Israel together.

Domingo’s debut in the US followed just six months after they left Israel, when he appeared for the first time with New York City Opera; he first stepped on stage at the Met in 1968. A period of serious groundwork followed, when he joined the company then known as the Opera Company of Israel, in Tel Aviv, giving 280 performances in 12 roles during two and a half years. He played piano for a touring ballet company, appeared as an actor on Mexican television, arranged pop songs, trained choruses, accompanied other singers in what he describes as “elegant and not so elegant” bars, and performed in light operettas and musicals, including the first Mexican staging of My Fair Lady, in 1959.Opera claimed him via the small role of Borsa in Verdi’s Rigoletto with the Mexican National Opera; his debut in a leading role, with the Monterrey Opera in 1961, was as Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata. As for its character, it was only when he auditioned for the Mexico National Opera as a baritone that it was suggested that he was really a tenor.But the intensity of the work he took on as he began his career was not solely down to vocation: Domingo married at the age of 16 and became a father at 17 He appeared in his parents’ zarzuelas as a baritone.