Domingo Cancels Performances After Being Hospitalized in Madrid

Dan Steinberg/Invision, via Associated Press Mr. Domingo in Los Angeles in June.

The tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo was hospitalized in Madrid on Monday with a pulmonary embolism, and though his spokeswoman, Nancy Seltzer, said on Tuesday afternoon that Mr. Domingo had responded well to treatment and was out of danger, she added that “he has been asked to rest for three or four weeks.”

Mr. Domingo, 72, was in Madrid for performances at the Teatro Real, where he was to sing the role of Pablo Neruda in “Il Postino,” an opera by Daniel Catán that Mr. Domingo has performed in Vienna and with the Los Angeles Opera, where he is the general director. He has had to withdraw from the production, which opens on July 17. He has also canceled plans to conduct the Orchestra Valencia in in a July 21 concert at the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, an event meant to support the city's bid to host the Olympics in 2020.

Ms. Seltzer said that Mr. Domingo's illness was caused by deep vein thrombosis, a condition in which a blood clot forms in the leg and travels up to the lung. She said that he was treated with blood thinners, which dissolved the clot, and that he was in good spirits.

Is Mr. Domingo, the opera world's biggest workaholic (Neruda in “Il Postino” was his 134th role) likely to sit still for the three to four weeks of rest his doctors have ordered?

Ms. Seltzer would not speculate.

“It's impossible to understand the strength and grace that this man has,” she said.