Placido Domingo Brings Curtain Down on Wagner Opera

Placido Domingo, one of the world's greatest tenors, yesterday pulled out of three high-profile Wagner performances in Germany, fuelling speculation that he is reaching the end of his glittering career.

He said he would not be appearing in planned performances of Richard Wagner's Parsifal next year at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He was also cancelling similar engagements in Hamburg and Berlin, the opera house said. It added that he had made the decision "due to his taking out the title role from his repertoire for the foreseeable future". The Spanish tenor, who is now 65, has managed to keep his career going well beyond an age at which most opera singers have retired. But the demands of singing Wagner appear to have eventually taken their toll.

Yesterday a spokeswoman for the Bavarian State Opera said Domingo had given no reason for his abrupt decision to quit. But she said spending four hours-plus on stage singing Wagner was a challenge for anyone in their mid-60s. "Wagner operas go on for a long time. He's not 25 any more," Ulrike Hessler said. "If someone like Domingo says he is withdrawing a role from his repertoire, it's rude to ask why. But most tenors have already given up by this stage. It's a miracle that Domingo can still sing the way he does at 65." She added: "It's different for bass or baritone singers, who can generally go on for longer."

The singer took part in a gala concert last Tuesday in Munich to mark the opening of the World Cup in Germany. "His voice sounded extremely good," Ms Hessler said.

Domingo's decision to scale down his public performances comes after criticism from some quarters that the famous tenor is no longer up to the task of singing demanding lead roles.

In a recent review of Domingo's last outing as Parsifal, at the Vienna State Opera last year, the Telegraph's Matthew Rye wrote that he was past the peak of his career vocally. "Domingo now lacks the strength always to carry his voice across the full Wagnerian orchestra," he noted.

The Munich opera house said that the much younger Nikolai Schukoff would sing Parsifal in performances scheduled for April 1, 5 and 8 next year. A planned July 8 2007 performance will be replaced by a Wagner gala concert featuring Domingo, Waltraud Meier, Rene Pape and Martin Gantner, it added. Kent Nagano will conduct.