By Chen Jie (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-17 07:01

On June 24, 2001, the splendid sounds of The Three Tenors echoed through the Forbidden City - Spanish tenor Jose Carreras and his partners Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo used their voices to support Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Spanish tenor Jose Carreras attends a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday. He is scheduled to perform at the National Grand Theater on Friday night. [China Daily]

Seven years later, Carreras is back in the capital and on Friday night, the magnetic tenor will perform arias and love songs at the newly-opened National Grand Theater.And as a treat for the local audience, he will sing a Chinese song, In the Place Far Away.

"I do not speak Chinese but will pay attention to my pronunciation," Carreras said. "I'm not pretending to be Confucius but will try to establish contact with Chinese audience."

This is Carreras' fourth visit to Beijing. Three years before the Three Tenors Concert at the Forbidden City, he gave a recital at the Great Hall of the People during the first Beijing Music Festival in October 1998. In 2005, he returned to the Great Hall of the People to join the cast of the Beijing New Year Concert.

"I'm happy and honored to be invited back to China and perform at the National Grand Theater which is one of the most beautiful places I have performed in my life," Carreras told the local press prior to a rehearsal at the theater.

"Congratulations to your people for they have such a wonderful theater."

To prepare for the recital, Carreras flew to Beijing as soon as he wrapped up a series of concerts in Sydney earlier this month.

Carreras was the music director of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 and performed at the closing ceremony of the Shanghai 2007 Special Olympics last October. There have been reports that the tenor would sing at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, but Carreras declined to confirm them.

"It would be an honor if I were involved in the Olympic Games," he said. "The Three Tenors Concert at the Forbidden City was my little effort in helping Beijing win the bid. And I wish you a successful Olympics."

Despite having undergone chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant to recover from leukemia, the 61-year-old said he is in good health.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Carreras sung many concerts together with Pavarotti and Domingo under the banner of The Three Tenors. With Pavarotti passing away of pancreatic cancer in September at the age 72, Carreras was asked whether The Three Tenors will re-form with a new singer.

"No," he told the press conference on Tuesday. "It would be disrespectful to Pavarotti if we re-form. The younger generation of singers may have the courage to form new groups, but we would never let others take the place of Pavarotti.

"For Placido and myself to do something like that would betray the memory of Luciano. I don't think that would be ethical," Carreras said.