José Carreras has finished with opera. The revelation comes as the youngest of the Three Tenors prepares to receive a lifetime achievement award at the tenth Classical BRITs at the Albert Hall in London on Tuesday. Now 62, the great Spanish singer accepts that he could no longer meet the gruelling demands of the roles he has performed for the past four decades. “If I can do concert recitals,” he says, “adapting the repertoire to my needs, then no problem. But with operas, unless the right circumstances come up, my career is done.”

This will leave Plácido Domingo as the only one of the three still working in that field; in June next year he takes the title role of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, though dropping from tenor to baritone, in Elijah Moshinsky’s production at the Royal Opera House.

Yet what a career Carreras has had. In a candid conversation in his beloved home town of Barcelona, he talks about his rollercoaster life — from the persecution in the early years of Franco that drove the family to the other side of the world, to the ten-month struggle against a virulent leukaemia and the years of international stardom with Domingo and the late Luciano Pavarotti. “Without being presumptuous,” he says, “we were the most popular tenors of the day. And the viewing figures of Italia ’90 (with its theme tune of Nessun Dorma, sung by Pavarotti) made us even more popular. We did it in a very genuine and spontaneous way. We were all football fans. There was a benefit concert. People really wanted to hear the three of us singing together. But, you know, 90 per cent of our repertoire was the same things that Caruso used to sing. So we never felt ashamed. We have to remember that this is meant to be entertainment. Of course there was some criticism, but this is just part of the game, just an opinion.”

He now gives about 50 recitals a year, and has released a new and eclectic double album taht is unabashedly aimed at the same wide audience reached by the Three Tenors. On one CD there are such reliable operatic selections as Che gelida manina from La Bohème, La donna è mobile from Rigoletto and E lucevan le stelle from Tosca. On the other you find those choices that are the bane of purists, as Carreras pours his voice, always lighter and more adaptable than those of his two senior partners, into Born Free, Over the Rainbow and White Christmas.

Times Archive, 1976: La Boheme, Covent Garden

Carreras has improved immeasurably, his voice ringing in splendidly healthy tones

Related Links

• José Carreras announces his retirement

• No change for tenor

“It is not just us, but other singers, like Kiri Te Kanawa, who do what in your country is called crossover. But again you can hear this from the past. Caruso also sang melodies from his own time. Classical singers have always gone to the lighter repertoire. My roots, of course, are in the classical one. But to make an incursion is very important. We can do that; pop singers cannot sing opera.”

This does not stop them trying, or at least having a go at the genre’s catchiest tunes. Take Elvis. “Ah yes. O sole mio.” He starts to sing: “Ees now or nevarr . . . I think he was a fantastic artist, the best in his field. Absolutely.”

What might he have achieved, given the training? “Ah, well, there is the instrument. But then there is also the vocation, somebody has to feel like singing and playing a certain type of music. A few weeks ago I went to see a Tom Jones concert.

It was in Vegas. Such a charismatic performer. He could have been a great opera singer. But there are many other ingredients. It’s a different field. When we do an open-air concert, of course we have microphones, but we can fill 3,000-seaters without them. So we need a very different technique, to protect the voice.”

He is speaking in the Barcelona offices of the leukaemia research foundation that bears his name. Julia, the 30-year-old daughter from his first marriage, works here. The place is all pale furniture and industrious silence. There is a photo of a much younger Carreras and Domingo in football gear, a CD rack with records by all three tenors, and by another great Catalan, the 76-year-old soprano Montserrat Caballé. Like the German conductor Herbert von Karajan, who “moulded me like a piece of wet clay”, Caballé was a source of encouragement.

When the tenors formed their trio Carreras was in his early forties, six years younger than Domingo and 11 younger than Pavarotti. He was slighter, finer-featured, than the stereotype of mighty divos. He was at the time the least well-known. In an episode of the American TV comedy series Seinfeld there was a character referred to as “the third tenor”, the only one of the three whom no one could name. Carreras’s evident modesty became him. Even sensible women went wild for him.

The passage of nearly 20 years has greyed his temples, but he remains a handsome man. Credit for his attainments is redirected with a gesture upwards, to the Lord. He had his own ressurection. When you put this to him he nods and replies with a laugh: “Look, I may be J. C., but not that one.” His recovery from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, cancer of the white blood cells, was the kind often described as miraculous. He was given a one-in-ten chance of survival. He underwent chemo and radiation therapy, as well as a bone-marrow transplant in Seattle. When he made a full recovery and returned to the concert stage, receptions were rapturous.

“Of course I am a very fortunate man,” he says, “because I have been lucky enough to overcome this very serious disease with not many chances to survive. I remember this every day. The help from above is very important.” Did he ever feel that he would not pull through? “Of course there are moments when you are a bit more pessimistic. I was very lucky to have the right people beside me, five months here [in Spain], and then in Seattle. After I recovered, then I started leading a normal life again. There were no secondary effects. I was not disabled by it. I took up my profession again.”

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010