With the help of his soprano second wife, Marta, and a baritone friend, he slowly discovered how to hold, support, and control the breath with the diaphragm. After that one month I had five months of problems. The strain of Wagner's vocal writing was just too much for a tenor under 30. Domingo rested, recovered, and made highly successful debuts in New York, London and the recording studios within a year, 1969. If I have four or five days between performances,' Domingo says, 'I can just open my mouth and the full voice is there.
Volume is the first thing to fade, particularly on low notes.
And as you grow older, it's the middle voice that wears out, because these notes are the most often used. He sings an average of two and a half performances a week. I probably use the voice for about 10 hours a week,' he says. In fact, at close quarters the blast of the tenor voice can reach 120 decibels - equivalent to a pneumatic drill and the threshold of pain. A singer who recently stood next to Pavarotti during the first tenor entry in the Verdi Requiem said it was like standing next to the sonic boom.