José Carreras (née Josep María Carreras-Coll) was born in Barcelona on the 5th of December 1946. Every biography on him mentions his early excitement about Mario Lanza, after having seen him in "The Great Caruso" as a 6 year old. He was also widely influenced by Giuseppe Di Stefano, whose style and phrasing at times was quite evident in Carreras singing.

He received formal education by the age of eight when he started attending the local music conservatory and he also gave his first public performance at this age, singing his favorite aria La Donna e Mobile on national radio. He was discovered by Montserrat Caballé at the age of 18 shortly after his mother's death in 1964, when singing the role of Flavio in Bellini's Norma at the Liceo in Barcelona. Caballé sang the title role (for the first time). Apparently, taking the role of Carreras protégé, Caballé made possible what Carreras has referred to as his "proper debut" in 1970, when he was invited to sing Gennaro opposite her Lucrezia Borgia in the opera by the same name. He was then 24. The year later he won the International Verdi Youth Lyrical Song Contest in Parma and appeared for the first time in London's Royal Festival Hall in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, with Caballé singing the title role. Covent Garden followed in 1974 (Alfredo, La Traviata), Wien Statsooper (The Duke in Rigoletto) and the MET (Cavaradossi, Tosca) the same year; La Scala, Milan, followed in 1975 (Riccardo, Un Ballo in Maschera). 1974 was also the year when Carreras made his first recording for Philips, Un Giorno di Regno.

Many consider the mid 70's and the early 80's as the peak of Carreras' career. In 1976 he was invited by Herbert von Karajan to participate in the Easter festival at Salzburg, where he took part in Verdi's Requiem under Karajan's direction. Apparently Karajan took great interest in the young tenor and during the next twelve years to follow they set out on a fruitful collaboration where Carreras enjoyed being "the favorite tenor of Karajan." After having recorded Bizet's Carmen in 1982, with Carreras as Don José, Karajan, obviously quite content with the work, exclaimed that he had to get to be 74 before hearing a Don José as he always had dreamt of hearing it performed.

The Salzburg Easter Festival in 1976 led to an appearance at the Summer Festival of Salzburg the same year, yet again under Karajan, in Verdi's Don Carlos, and later on with Abbado, at the Teatro Alla Scala (1977). 1979 he appeared in Verdi's Aida, in Salzburg, under Karajan. He was a much awaited Andrea Chenier at La Scala in 1982 after a 20 year absence of the opera at the theater. 1984 he recorded Verdi's Requiem with Karajan for Deutsche Grammophon.

Originally a lyric tenor, Carreras soon moved into the heavier and more dramatic repertoire and perhaps too early in his career without proper preparation nor technique to do so. A sense of fatigue seemed to be present already from the beginning of the 80's in his voice, suggesting that a vocal decline was in effect, making its presence even before his illness in 1987 when he received the diagnosis of grave leukemia in Barcelona (see below), although some biographies suggest his illness was one of the major causes to his decline. Nevertheless, critics had it that the had been straining his voice in a repertoire not suitable for him, and like di Stefano, pushing or forcing the voice with a harmful open note, perjudicating the flexibility and overall health of the voice. Di Stefano had a vocal breakdown during the late 50's and the beginning of the 60's, and retired from the stage. He later reappeared, but without the gist and clarity of tone as in his prime time.

Shortly after doing Puccini's Manon Lescaut in 1987 with Kiri Te Kanawa and with Riccardo Chailly conducting, he collapsed and was diagnosed seriously ill with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Standing at the verge of death, he miraculously recovered, after a year of treatment in USA and in Barcelona, but it was on everyone's lips that Carreras would never return to the stage. He did resume his career, however, and made an emotional performance in front of his home audience in Barcelona 1988, under the city's Triumphant Arch, and drawing close to 150.000 admirers. In 1990 he mounted the grand scale Three Tenors Concert together with Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo in Rome before the World Cup Final, an outdoor benefit concert for his newly founded José Carerras International Leukemia Foundation, and held in the historic remains of the Colosseo, telecasted and seen by more than one million people worldwide. It led to a series of "The Three Tenors" concerts throughout the 90's, followed by record sales of the video and CD releases of the events.

After almost a decade's absence from the opera scene, Carreras role debuted in Wolf-Ferrari's seldomly performed opera "Sly" at the Opernhaus in Zürich on 9 May 1998, opposite Daniela Dessi and Juan Pons. The following year he brought the production to the Washington Opera in March, before appearing in Verona in June as Don José in Carmen, a role he repeated in Zürich in October. In June 2000, Sly visited the Liceu in Barcelona, with Sherrill Milnes in his comeback, and the Teatro Regio of Torino and the Nice Opera saw the production in October and November that year. In March 2001 he sang in Samson et Dalilah in Barcelona.