'José Carreras, 66, Returning to Opera in Christian Kolonovits' 'El Juez' at Bilbao

He was never exactly in the vanguard of new writing, but the news of José Carreras' return to opera with a new work--'El Juez' by Christian Kolonovits, after a story by Angelika Messner--is doubly surprising. Most surprising, perhaps, because most of us thought we'd seen the Spaniard's last complete role on an operatic stage. At 66, alas, Italianate tenors are usually only giving recitals and concerts of arias. That's the role Carreras looked to have assumed, and this will be his first complete opera since Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's 'Sly' in 2002.