7 September, 2007
BY OUR CELEBRITY REPORTER
Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti, 71,
is no more. He died in the early hours
of September 6, 2007, at his home in
Modena, Italy, after a year-long
battle
with pancreatic cancer.
There were many other great tenors who
enriched the second half of the 20th
century, but for millions of people,
Luciano Pavarotti was the main man –
in fact, the only one. His singing
gave more pleasure to more people for
a longer period of time than any other
classical singer in history did.
Luciano Pavarotti’s operatic career
lasted for over four decades after his
debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La
Boheme in Modena on April 29, 1961.
His
farewell appearance in opera was at
the Metropolitan Opera in New York on
March 13, 2004 – his 383rd performance
in that venue.
Pavarotti's fame went beyond the
bounds of opera thanks to recordings,
television, DVDs, arena concerts,
charity events with such stars as U2
and the Spice Girls, and his
partnership with Placido Domingo and
Jose Carreras in Three Tenors
concerts.
During his prime, Luciano Pavarotti’s
voice was incomparable, clear and
ringing, all the way up to high C and
beyond. His clear and fervent delivery
of Italian words was a model, as was
his legato.
Pavarotti’s emotion-soaked voice
endeared to every soprano he sang with
as well as to each and every listener
he sang to.
A music critic of the New York Times
once wrote famously that Pavarotti’s
vocal cords were “kissed by God.” When
television interviewer Pia Lindstrom
repeated this remark to him, Pavarotti
replied: “God kissed you all over.”
This was just one of the instances,
which showed that the great tenor’s
gregarious personality was as
endearing as his voice. He was a good
colleague onstage, always willing to
help a younger singer.
Luciano Pavarotti was born on October
12, 1935. His father was an amateur
singer and a baker.
Pavarotti once told the Globe: “My
voice changed when I was about 15. At
the beginning it was a very high
tenor, and when I changed the voice I
began to imitate the movies of Mario
Lanza – all of them. He had a
fantastic voice, not just a wonderful
voice, but a fantastic voice.”
Pavarotti’s rise to superstardom did
not come overnight. The sweet voice
was there all right from the
beginning, and echoes of it stayed
with him to the end, but it took him a
few years to acquire the technique,
the experience, and the
self-confidence that made his career
unique.
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