After Dinner Speakers: Placido Domingo, Jonathan Aitken, Fatboy Slim

b. 21 January 1941, Madrid, Spain. One of the world's leading tenors who, along with Luciano Pavarotti, has attempted to give opera in recent years a widespread, classless appeal. Domingo's family emigrated to Mexico in 1950, where he studied piano, conducting and singing. He debuted as a baritone in 1957, and his first major tenor role came in 1960 performing in Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. Domingo became a member of the Israel National Opera from 1962-65 and latter made acclaimed performances at the New York City Opera and Metropolitan, and at La Scala (Milan) and Covent Garden (London) - singing alongside sopranos such as Katria Ricciarelli, Rosalind Plowright and Montserrat Caballe. His first flirtation with the pop world came in 1981, when he recorded as duet with John Denver, "Perhaps Love". This Denver-penned song reached the UK Top 50 and US Top 20, consequently opening up a parallel career for Domingo in light entertainment and simultaneously introducing to the mass-market the delights of the operatic aria as well as Spanish love-songs. In 1985 he joined forces with Sarah Brightman and Lorin Maazel for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem, which became a UK Top 10 album. "Till I Loved You", a duet with Jennifer Rush, reached the UK Top 30 in 1989. Domingo's efforts, plus those of similar promotions from Luciano Pavarotti, Nigel Kennedy and José Carreras, signalled the beginnings of the early 90s boom in sales of populist classical and operatic music. In particular, the "Three Tenors" concert with Carreras and Pavarotti, promoting the 1990 soccer World Cup in Italy, gained the three men widespread media coverage and huge record sales. They repeated the concert for the 1998 World Cup in France. The same year Domingo released Por Amor, an album dedicated to the work of Mexican composer Agustín Lara. In October 2002, Domingo received an honorary knighthood for his contributions to music and his charity work in England and around the world.