José Carreras: 'I was selfish. I made mistakes'

The normally reticent opera singer José Carreras talks for the first time about his tortuous love life and how he finally came to marry his mistress. Interview by Cassandra Jardine

Like most tenors, José Carreras projects the image of being the soul of romance. On stage, he leans forward, arms outstretched, voice soaring as he articulates words of love. Off stage, however, he has a reputation for being reserved about his emotional life. That's a shame because it's his recent marital history I most want to hear about when we meet in his native Barcelona.

I feel sure it will be easy to get him to talk about his long career on the world's stages. At 61, he shows little sign of curtailing a frenetic round of concerts, including two appearances in London this autumn: at Proms in the Park in a fortnight's time, and at the Royal Albert Hall in December in aid of his charity, the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation, which he set up 20 years ago after his recovery from cancer. He may be happy to reminisce about the good old days with Domingo and Luciano as the Three Pensioners... sorry, Tenors. But will he want to talk about the twists and turns of his private life?

Two years ago he married for the second time in a secret ceremony. His bride was Jutta Jäger, an Austrian former air hostess who was his mistress when he was still married to his first wife, Mercedes, mother of his children, Alberto and Julia. Twenty years ago when it seemed he was about to die from leukaemia, the two women apparently took turns to sit by his hospital bed while Carreras, like Don José in Carmen - one of his most famous roles - was, presumably, torn between them.

After he recovered and was seen everywhere with Jutta as his consort, his wife finally divorced him in 1992. He might then have married his mistress. In opera, tenors generally know their hearts even if their love is doomed, but not Carreras. He procrastinated and, the following year, Jutta married an Austrian businessman with whom she went on to have three sons. Many years later, they must have met again, confessed their folly and declared undying love. Clearly, there is aria material in this not so much star-crossed as muddled love affair, but will he want to sing about it?

The atmosphere in the offices of his foundation isn't auspicious. It's like a Harley Street doctor's waiting room, all clean white lines and people talking of medical matters rather than affairs of the heart. While waiting for Mr Carreras (as I am instructed to call him), I wonder if I should have come draped in the Catalan flag to loosen him up. His fan club of middle-aged Japanese women did so at his 50th-anniversary concert in Barcelona in June; it made their idol beam.

When he makes his entrance, it's not in the grand theatrical style. His manner is courteous, his voice soft. It's hard to imagine him shouting his head off at Barcelona's football team as he is wont to do. "It is the only thing that gets me really emotional," he says. He is far less precious than might be expected of a musical child prodigy who has enjoyed half a century of adulation. Apart from the melting brown eyes that have turned many heads, this small, neat-featured man has the business-like manner of a corporate executive. Half the time, that's what he is, since his foundation dispenses £7 million a year in research grants, and runs Spain's bone-marrow register.

"If I were 40 years younger, I would be a doctor," he says. Really? "No, I would choose again to be a singer. Please don't think me arrogant if I say that I have a certain instinct for singing which I do not have for medicine. I believe I can transmit feelings and emotions. That makes me fulfilled, not just as an artist but as a person."

So modest for one who was already performing the great operatic roles in his early twenties. Now, in concert, he sings love songs, but at home in the shower his tastes are populist. What are his current favourites? Amy Winehouse? "This is not a macho statement, but I prefer to listen to men. I like Sinatra - he is the best. I try to imitate him, but... I love Elton John, too. Sting is also a great artist. And Phil Collins."

He says he would do a few bars of these if anyone were to ask when he visits cancer wards - as he does regularly - to cheer up those whose spirits may be flagging as his did 20 years ago. It was in 1987, at the age of 40, that he was struck with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Given only a 10 per cent chance of survival, his life was saved by six months spent in isolation in Seattle receiving a brand new drug treatment.

Combined with painful operations to remove, clean and return his bone marrow, it worked and, in 1988, he made a triumphant return to Barcelona's opera house, the Gran Teatre del Liceu. "It was a very difficult period of my life," he says, "but for the rest I have been a very fortunate, very privileged man."

Having long had the all clear, he now views his near brush with death as the making of him. "Certain things give you another perspective in life. I had been a bit selfish. My profession was very important to me. Afterwards, I tried to get closer to my kids, my family, to people in general. You mature all of a sudden. I remember the great unhappiness of those times, but also the way not only family and friends but the general public surrounded me with affection. And it gave me the possibility to create this foundation."

But it didn't, ahem, do much for his marriage. "We already had a civilised arrangement," he says. But what of his failure to marry the beautiful Jutta, many years his junior, once she had nursed him through his recovery and divorce: does he regret the behaviour that led her to drop him ? "What happened before doesn't count. With years, you understand many things. It is important to be passionate, but it is also important to combine the heart and the head. I have made mistakes in both my private and professional lives.

"We didn't see each other for many years. But we met again in different circumstances in Vienna and decided that we wanted to spend our lives together. That was in 2004 and by then we were both free and she had three lovely children." Why didn't he tell people about his marriage until afterwards? "Your real feelings are inside you," he says. Will they have children ? "I am a grandfather now. It is enough."

Sometimes when he is on tour, Jutta comes with him. Other times, she stays behind to care for her boys, but he says he is used to a lonely life of suitcases and hotel rooms. It was fun, however, to tour with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo doing the Three Tenors concerts that began in 1990. He misses Pavarotti, who died a year ago of pancreatic cancer.

"Luciano was always extremely funny. He would make us laugh by changing the words of certain arias." Perish the thought that there was any rivalry between the three of them, but I detect a certain delight when he adds: "We played poker, too: Luciano, who was a good actor, and I were better than Placido. And sometimes Luciano made wonderful food - he would bring along the right salami, even the right watermelon."

Among tenors, he has the reputation for being an intellectual, which is not surprising given his background. His father, a French teacher, was banned from the classroom and had to work as a traffic policeman because, as a Catalan nationalist, he had fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

Josep is his "real name", but at the beginning of his career he was required to use the Spanish version, José, and still resents it. "I get very angry about lack of freedom and social justice because I spent the first 28 years of my life under Franco [who died in 1975]. When you are 18 and there are no elections, of course, you realise the lack of freedom. I was at university in 1968 - for one year studying chemistry - and I ran in front of the police. Some of my friends were arrested, but I ran faster."

By then he was already an established fixture in opera, having begun his career, aged seven, entertaining clients at his mother's beauty salon. He amazed people by perfectly reproducing arias that he heard on records or films. "I didn't feel like a prodigy because my parents didn't allow me to be different. They made me to go to university. I sang for myself and because people liked it."

He's still giving 50 concerts a year around the world. Some say it is time to stop now before his famous timbre goes, but he won't hear of it. "I hope I can continue for another four or five years. I have great emotion every time I go on stage. Nothing in life gives me the same satisfaction that my profession gives me."

Despite the intriguing vicissitudes of his romance with Jutta Jäger, the key love affair of his life is, I suspect, with his audiences. Now that Jutta has children, and a wedding ring, she may no longer mind.

• José Carreras will perform at the BBC Proms in the Park on September 13; see www.bbc.co.uk/proms. He will also host a gala concert and dinner on December 11 at the Royal Albert Hall for his International Leukaemia Foundation and Mencap. For tickets, call 020 7589 8212 or visit www.royalalberthall.com.