José Carreras

José Carreras was born Josep Maria Carreras i Coll in the working class district of Sants in 1946, the third child of a struggling family; his father, a French teacher, had fought against Franco and afterwards was barred from teaching, so had to work as a traffic cop; his mother worked in a beauty salon. They who immigrated to Argentina in 1951 in search of a better life, but soon returned to Barcelona.

At age 6, after watching Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso, little Josep (because he began his career under Franco, he was compelled to take the Castilian form, José, on stage) couldn't stop singing to the point of driving his family crazy. He took piano and voice lessons from a friend of his mother's, and would sing for the ladies in her salon; he made his stage début at age 8, singing La Donna è mobile for national Spanish radio when he was still a boy soprano. At the same time, he began to take lessons at the Barcelona conservatory. His mother always believed he would be great, but died of cancer when he was 18.