![]() ![]() 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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