When we filmed ‘Barcelona’, he was actually nervous before going on the stage. Every meeting was like a first meeting.”ĭavid Mallet: “I remember having to adjust his clothes, check his hair and check his moustache looked fine before he met her once. It was almost like he had amnesia since their last time together. Peter Freestone: “Every single time Freddie met Montserrat, he was nervous. They’d both drunk God knows what and they were just falling over each other, adoring each other.” After being initially nervous, did Freddie get used to being around his idol? My favourite memory of them was at 3am in a hotel somewhere. One doesn’t think that of opera singers and Fred didn’t think that, but Montserrat was an original rock’n’roll maniac. Freddie’s face, my God! He was agonising at her: ‘How can you do this? You’ll destroy your voice! What are you doing?’ I mean, she’d already drunk two bottles of champagne…”ĭavid Mallet: “She was as big a maniac as Freddie. Montserrat picked up Freddie’s cigarette packet, took one out and started smoking. Peter Freestone: “When Montserrat stayed at Freddie’s home, Garden Lodge, to try ideas for the album, the two of them and Mike Moran the producer were up at 4am. The tracks would be basically completed, just needing her vocal.” There are stories that suggest they were as wild as each other… Peter Freestone: “Montserrat had three days in September, four in January and two or three in April to come over and record her vocals. Then Montserrat said: ‘How many songs do you put on a rock album?’ When Freddie told her eight or 10, she said: ‘Fine – we will do an album.'”ĭavid Mallet: “Freddie said to me the next day: ‘Darling, I’ve woken up and I’m doing a fucking album!'” Peter Freestone: “Freddie assumed they’d only make one song together. In all my life, I never saw Freddie so nervous.” When they became the host city in 1986, she said, ‘Who better to do a theme song with than Freddie Mercury?’ That was at Christmas, and in February they met at the Ritz in Barcelona.
Peter Freestone: “Montserrat’s brother was in charge of the entertainment for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.
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He had a fear Montserrat would ignore him and he wouldn’t know how to come back from that.” What was their first meeting like? He imagined Montserrat would be a grand opera character, the same way everyone imagined Freddie was a rock & roll animal.”ĭavid Mallet: “I think Freddie was frightened of being snubbed, too. I don’t think he wanted his image of this amazing diva destroyed. Freddie went to a couple more of Montserrat’s concerts in New York, but he never wanted to meet her. But as soon as Montserrat started singing, Freddie ignored Pavarotti. We went to the Royal Opera House to hear Luciano Pavarotti singing. Peter Freestone: “I introduced Freddie to Montserrat’s voice in 1981. How did the duet between Freddie and originally come about? We heard about their drunken antics, the majesty of their voices and how ‘Barcelona’ was a tragic race against time after Freddie learned of his Aids diagnosis while making the album.
NME met Freddie’s longtime PA and best friend Peter Freestone, along with the biggest video director of the ’80s, David Mallet – who made the video for the album’s eponymous lead single ‘Barcelona’ – to learn that Montserrat was as big a “rock & roll maniac” as anyone. The new boxset ‘Never Boring’, a compilation of Freddie Mercury’s solo material, is revisiting ‘Barcelona’. But it nearly never happened, even though Spanish opera giant Montserrat was the only singer Freddie Mercury was in awe of (she was the only person ever to make Queen‘s legendary showman cry). Released in 1988, their joint album ‘Barcelona’ remains the only great classical crossover moment. But Freddie Mercury was one of the greatest rock singers of all time– and Montserrat Caballe, who died last year, was one of the finest opera voices of any generation too. As a rule, rock and opera getting together is a worse meeting than Trump and Johnson.
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