Just like buses, you wait for years and then all three operatic legends get honoured at once.

It’s been quite a week for the Three Tenors. First Plácido Domingo gets $150,000 from what’s been called the Japanese “Nobel Prize for the Arts”. Next, José Carreras received the Vienna State Opera Ring of Honour. And finally, not to be outdone by his living colleagues, the irrepressible Luciano Pavarotti is to receive a posthumous award at this year’s Classical Brits.

Domingo was honoured alongside Francis Ford Coppola and British sculptor Antony Gormley as winners of the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale Awards, which net their recipients a cool 15 million yen – that’s about $150,000. Founded in 1989, the awards are for visual and performing artists and winners are chosen based on recommendations from international advisers. Previous winners include Sophia Loren, Philip Glass, Ravi Shankar and Federico Fellini. Japan’s Prince Hitachi will give out the awards at a ceremony on October 16.

Carreras meanwhile appeared at the Wiener Staatsoper on Saturday for a matinee concert to benefit the José Carreras Leukemia Foundation. His return to the Viennese stage marked the 25th anniversary of his famous comeback following his recovery from leukemia....