The Spanish tenor looks up at a big gal with big hair who says she's from Dallas. His eyebrows raise. "I'm coming to Dallas in October."

"Why, you're invited to my home," she drawls.

"It depends on the kind of cooking," he responds, smiling.

"Anything you want!"

At 52, Carreras is the least known of the Three Tenors, the guy who became a running gag on "Seinfeld" as the only member of the trio whose name Jerry and the gang couldn't remember. But neither Placido Domingo nor Luciano Pavarotti inspires the intensity of worship that Carreras does among his hard-core fans. The adulation is Beatles-esque.

Many of the women crowding around Carreras this Thursday in March have seen him perform a dozen times; an Australian woman says she's heard 60 Carreras performances worldwide since 1995.

These fans could care less that Carreras' voice -- in its prime an instrument of plush sensuality and weeping sentiment -- can sound as frayed as old twine.

They believe in him, the way golf fans still believein Arnold Palmer, even though he usually shoots a 78 these days.

"Carreras is the sensitive one," says Wanda Popp of Calumet City, Ill., who will be hearing the trio for the third time when she travels to Detroit. She launches into the armchair psychoanalysis of a plugged-in, if biased fan:

"Placido is ambitious. He wants to be the the No. 1 tenor, but he's got more of a patronizing attitude toward his audience. Pavarotti has the best voice, and he's the biggest hambone with that smile and the hanky. But Carreras seems more sincere. It's like he's singing directly to you and it's coming directly from his heart."

On the comeback trail

Carreras is in Washington to sing the title role in Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's "Sly," a little-known tragedy that Carreras has made a specialty in recent years. His Washington Opera performances, however, mark his first appearance in a full-fledged opera production on American soil since his battle with leukemia in 1987.

The opera is uneven, but Christopher Sly is an intriguing character, a tavern poet whose world turns upside down when he passes out one night and a cruel aristocrat transports him to his castle, where servants pretend Sly is a nobleman suffering from amnesia.

Carreras' performance this evening blends moments of lyric glory with patches of colorless and strained vocalism. Yet dramatically, he triumphs: Carreras remains a charismatic stage presence and a communicative artist no matter what shape his voice is in, and those who have seen him only in recital or as part of the Three Tenors juggernaut might be surprised at the subtlety and control he displays as an actor.

"Very important in my opinion is that you really believe in what you are doing," Carreras says in his dressing room following the performance. "For the last 3 1/2 hours I've been Sly; I've felt like Sly."

Does Sly remind him of himself? In some ways, yes:

"The need of communication with others, the need of being understood, the need of being loved. And also I'm an artist, allow to me to say, and I think being an artist I'm a rather sensitive person and I understand the problems this man is going through. The only good part is I don't drink at all."

A small man, Carreras stands about 5 feet 7 -- "He's so tiny," a woman in the front of the theater whispered when he first stepped on stage.

He is famously handsome, with a sharp profile and dark eyes as soft as pillows, but up close his skin is surprisingly pale, almost ashen. It is impossible to chat with him without thinking of the disease that nearly killed him.

In 1987, at age 40, he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a form of cancer that at the time killed the majority of those diagnosed within five years. Miraculously, Carreras beat the odds, through arduous chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant.

If there were any lingering jealousies between the tenors -- always exaggerated anyway -- they were squashed by the unified front of support for their comrade.

Carreras remembers Domingo flying to see him at the cancer clinic in Seattle. And Pavarotti would call and shout into the phone "Forza Campione!" ("Have strength, champion!") In 1989, Carreras resumed his career.

Straight to the top

Born in Barcelona, Carreras became enamored with opera at age 6 after seeing matinee idol Mario Lanza in "The Great Caruso." Soon he was singing arias by ear and studying piano at the local conservatory. He began formal voice training in 1964, eventually making his debut in a small role in "Norma" in Barcelona in 1970 and winning the International Verdi Competition a year later.

His career took off like a comet. He seduced audiences and critics with the unforced lyricism of his voice and its natural sweetness, pliancy and ardor, especially in such roles as Nemorino in Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love" and Cavaradossi in Puccini's "Tosca."

By 1976, Carreras had come under the powerful influence of dictatorial conductor Herbert von Karajan, who encouraged him to take up heavier dramatic roles such as Verdi's Don Carlos and Radames. Carreras worked non-stop, and by the early '80s, critics were carping that his voice was beginning to chafe under the pressure of his schedule and the demands of his repertory.

Ask Carreras if he pushed his voice too much, if he would do it differently today, and he answers quickly, almost reflexively, "I don't know." After a pause he continues.

"Like everybody else, I make mistakes. But let me keep them for myself, please," he says, bringing a hand up to his chest. "A few things of course I would change because it would be so arrogant from my side to say, 'No, I did everything right.' But I think I have to be very grateful for what I've had in my professional life."