Las Vegas part of a busy week for Placido Domingo

Macau? Now that was a summer road trip for Placido Domingo. Las Vegas is just down the highway, and more of a first for the Colosseum at Caesars Palace than for the opera star's resume of more than 3,700 performances.

The 74-year-old Spanish legend already sang in a Las Vegas gamblin' joint in April 2000. That was his landmark concert with the Three Tenors, sharing the stage with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras. Fans paid up to $900 to see the trio in the Mandalay Bay Events Center, the smallest venue they had played together since their first joint concert in 1990.

Tuesday's concert comes on the heels of Saturday's LA Opera season opener, in which Domingo is billed in the title role of the comic opera "Gianni Schicchi" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

In Las Vegas, Domingo will sing in a concert format backed by the Las Vegas Philharmonic, under the helm of guest conductor Eugene Kohn. The guest soprano will be Ana Maria Martinez.

Domingo is a director at the LA Opera, and some fans would allege coastal rivalries factored into lukewarm reviews for his March turn with New York City's Metropolitan opera.

As he took a baritone role for Verdi's "Ernani," a New York Times review claimed Domingo's "voice is now quite compromised and his performance showed it," though there were "flashes of the Domingo vocal charisma we remember from his decades of magnificent singing."

There is always "Encanto del Mar," the more relaxed album Domingo released last fall, where he recorded songs from several Mediterranean cultures with scaled-down musical backing.

— Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.