Luciano Pavarotti

Italian opera singer

• Born: October 12, 1935
• Birthplace: Modena, Italy
• Died: September 6, 2007
• Place of death: Modena, Italy

Possessing a rigorously trained voice of exceptional beauty, Pavarotti became the leading lyric tenor of his time and a musical superstar who reached a larger audience than any classical artist who preceded him.

Early Life

Operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti (lew-CHYAH-noh pah-vah-RAH-tee) was born in Modena, Italy. His father, Fernando, a baker with a strong tenor voice, sang as a soloist and a choir member with the local church but was too shy to attempt a singing career. Fernando collected recordings of his favorite singers, including the famed Italian tenors Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, and Mario del Monaco. His son would carry on the lyric legacy of these great singers.

During his boyhood, Luciano Pavarotti was surrounded by doting girls and women who populated the modest apartment house in which his family lived. He was a particular favorite of his grandmother Giulia, who cared for him while his mother worked in a local cigar factory to supplement the family income. During World War II, the Pavarotti family faced dangers and privation, but on the whole, they led a normal life in wartime Italy.

An indifferent student at the local Modena school, Pavarotti was fond of sports and music, although his vocal talent was not generally recognized. At age twelve he attended a live concert by fifty-seven-year-old Gigli and was impressed by Gigli’s discipline and dedication to practice. At age nineteen, Pavarotti considered whether to attend college to become a mathematics teacher, become a professional soccer goalie, or prepare for a singing career. Though they were by no means affluent, his parents agreed to support him for ten years while he studied music and attempted to establish himself as a singer.

In 1954, Pavarotti secured a local voice teacher, Arrigo Pola, who worked with him intensively for two and one-half years on breathing technique, scales, and vocalizing. A promising pupil, Pavarotti applied himself and attempted to master the art of singing. He accepted the view that the tenor voice is not natural but is rather an artificial creation that requires rigorous discipline and careful nurturing to develop properly. In 1955 the Choral Rossini from Modena, which included both Pavarotti and his father, won first prize for choir singing at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales, a success that Pavarotti later cited as key in convincing him to continue in his pursuit of a professional career.

While his temporary jobs, such as part-time teaching and insurance sales, helped ease the financial burden on his family for a brief time, Pavarotti eventually found it necessary to devote all his energy to developing his voice. After studying with Pola in Modena, he became the pupil of Ettore Campogalliani, who lived in nearby Reggio Emilia and who was also the teacher of the soprano Mirella Freni.

In 1961, Pavarotti began giving concerts; during that year, he won first place in a singing contest held in Reggio Emilia. The prize was the lead tenor role of Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohème (1869), scheduled for production at the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia on April 29, 1961. Following a moderately successful debut, Pavarotti appeared in operas chiefly in Italian provincial towns over the next three years. Also in 1961, he married Adua Veroni, a fellow opera singer.

Before becoming a seasoned performer, Pavarotti experienced both disappointment and good fortune in his early recitals and operatic performances. At times his voice did not function well, whereas on other occasions it was comparable to the best tenor voices. At one performance, however, a talent agent who was interested in signing a baritone offered instead to become Pavarotti’s agent after hearing the tenor for the first time. On other occasions, Pavarotti received encouragement from contemporary tenors Giuseppe di Stefano and Ferruccio Tagliavini and famed conductor Tullio Serafin.

Life’s Work

While singing in the Dublin Opera Company in 1963, Pavarotti received the break that led to stardom. The manager of England’s Royal Opera Company, Covent Garden, believed it prudent to secure a backup singer for tenor di Stefano, whose voice had become somewhat inconsistent, and Pavarotti was chosen. Summoned to London, he assumed the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème in the middle of a performance after di Stefano could not continue. He subsequently sang the role for three additional scheduled performances and was warmly received by the London audience.

After di Stefano canceled a live appearance on England’s top televised variety show, Pavarotti was invited to sing to an audience that numbered in the millions. He sang with an especially good voice, and the event introduced him to the general public, as opposed to the few who attended operas. Similar media successes would be repeated many times over as he presented outdoor concerts before mass audiences and sang in televised galas and operatic performances.

Following these experiences, Pavarotti was selected by the leading soprano Joan Sutherland to sing tenor roles opposite her during a tour of Australia in 1965. Before leaving on tour, Pavarotti made his first American appearance. In Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Pavarotti and Sutherland starred in Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). The operas selected for performance on the tour offered tenor roles especially congenial to Pavarotti, the bel canto parts in operas by composers Vincenzo Bellini, Donizetti, and Giuseppe Verdi. Perhaps more important, Pavarotti improved his breathing technique by working with Sutherland.

After the successful Australian tour, Pavarotti began receiving invitations to sing worldwide and signed a lucrative contract with Decca Records for a series of recordings. It was during this time that he became known as “king of the high C’s” for his ability to hit and sustain high notes. His debut with the Metropolitan Opera in were chosen in 1968 as Rodolfo in La Bohème was clouded by a case of the flu, which caused him to cancel several performances. Even so, the New York critics and audience were highly favorable in their responses. Four years later, he returned to the Metropolitan Opera in triumph, singing his famous role in Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment (1840). He was to become a leading tenor at the Metropolitan Opera for more than twenty-five years, specializing in lyric roles. Moreover, his televised performance of Rodolfo with the Met in 1977 reached one of the largest audiences for opera ever and greatly broadened his name recognition.

Along with operatic performances, Pavarotti continued singing concerts and recitals worldwide, reaching huge audiences and traveling as far as Moscow and Beijing. His repertoire included well-known arias, Italian songs, and sacred music. His highly successful recordings and television appearances brought what critics call “the Pavarotti sound” to millions who had never attended an opera or a live classical performance. Additionally, in 1982 he inaugurated the Pavarotti International Voice Competition for young people, held periodically thereafter.

The recording of his televised Three Tenors Concert in Rome during the World Cup (1990), made with colleagues José Carreras and Plácido Domingo, broke all previous sales records for a classical program. Reprises of the World Cup event in Los Angeles (1994), Paris (1998), and Yokohama (2002) repeated the spectacular success of the first event. His concert in London’s Hyde Park in 1991 attracted 150,000 people; another outdoor concert in New York’s Central Park in 1993 had more than a half million in attendance; yet a third in 1994 in Paris saw a crowd of 300,000. In 1998 he performed on the Saturday Night Live television comedy show, the first and only opera singer to do so and a sign of his status in popular culture.

Pavarotti began a farewell tour to end his career in 2004, and his last opera performance came in March of that year as Mario Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca (1900) at the Metropolitan Opera. At the conclusion of the opera, the audience accorded him a twelve-minute standing ovation. His last singing appearance was on February 10, 2006, when he sang “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s Turandot (1926), by then his trademark work, at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy.

By then Pavarotti was suffering from a series of health problems and was hampered by his corpulence. Laryngitis kept him from a 2005 reunion of the Three Tenors, and in 2006 he was kept in hospital from an infection following back surgery. Later that year he was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas and underwent surgery.

In 2001, Pavarotti and Adua divorced. They had had four daughters. He married his secretary, Nicoletta Montovani, in 2003; they had one daughter. In 2007 Pavarotti bequeathed money to Modena’s General Hospital for establishment of the Pavarotti Neonatology Center in memory of his son, Riccardo, who died at birth. He was already well known for his charitable causes, donating concert profits to the Red Cross and refugee aid organizations. He created Pavarotti Music Center Bosnia to help that nation’s artists.

Resisting the onset of the cancer, Pavarotti announced a new international concert tour in 2007, but he was unable to carry it out. He died in Modena from pancreatic cancer on September 6, 2007. To honor his memory, his body was placed on view in Modena Cathedral, and tributes came from opera houses throughout the world. He had already attracted many honors and awards, including the Grammy Legend Award (1998, his recordings having won numerous Grammies), Kennedy Center Honors (2001), and the Nansen Medal from the United National High Commission for Refugees (2001).

Significance

The Pavarotti sound was unmistakable, a large-volume lyric tenor voice with an even vibration, slight nasality, and strength on every note in his range of more than two octaves. His delivery featured precise tones; crisp, clear articulation; and an unbroken legato line. While he sometimes lengthened high notes to please the audience, his singing remained free of distracting mannerisms that marred the performance of such great singers as Gigli. At the same time, he was somewhat limited in color tones so that purity of tone took precedence over emotional effect.

Always emphasizing practice, breathing technique, and vocal training, Pavarotti was careful in selecting operatic roles suitable to his voice. This, combined with careful warmups before performances, sustained his career for much longer than the normal tenor career. His inclination toward skillful covering of notes, barely noticeable in a voice as strong and precise as his, also helped prolong his vocal career.

At the same time, the quality of his voice and an inclination toward caution limited his versatility. Although he accepted the challenging lyric roles and even sang roles so difficult that they had rarely been performed, he generally avoided the spinto and dramatic roles that require a heavier voice with tones darker than his. He declined offers to sing parts that he knew might damage his voice. Yet during the latter part of his career he was willing to undertake carefully selected spinto and verismo roles.

Never known for his acting ability, Pavarotti was nonetheless always a favorite with audiences, who responded to his warm personality as well as his art. Like other great singers, he realized that, if performed properly, emotion is conveyed by the music, not the acting. In live performance, he seemed to give his all, whether the audience numbered a few hundred or several hundred thousand. This impression was enhanced by his larger-than-life physical presence that dominated the stage and by his habit of extending his large arms as if to embrace the audience. He was known for remaining hours after a performance to sign programs for eager fans, something that few artists have the inclination to do. However, he made himself unpopular in some opera houses because of the frequency with which he canceled performances.

Pavarotti increased his popular appeal by singing light classical songs and appearing in films without compromising his vocal standards. It was his good fortune that throughout the peak years of his career, stereophonic and digital recordings were at a high level of technical excellence, and thus his recordings will preserve the full range of his talent. He will be remembered as the leading lyric tenor of the final third of the twentieth century and the most popular opera singer of his time.

Bibliography

Breslin, Herbert, and Anne Midgette. The King and I: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti’s Rise to Fame by His Manager, Friend, and Sometime Adversary. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Breslin, Pavarotti’s manager for thirty-six years, reflects frankly on the superstar career of his client, who was charming, egotistical, passionate, superstitious, determined, and, it seems, somewhat unhappy in his later years.

Hastings, Stephen. “The Art of Luciano.” Opera News 60 (April 13, 1996): 18-20. Hastings praises Pavarotti’s vocal instrument and his musicality and assesses his appeal to mass audiences. The author concludes that audiences influenced Pavarotti’s singing style.

Kesting, Jürgen. Luciano Pavarotti: The Myth of the Tenor. Translated by Susan H. Ray. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996. Kesting’s somewhat questionable thesis is that the art of tenor singing peaked in the late nineteenth century and was sustained through the period of Enrico Caruso, followed by a long decline. Kesting finds the superstar status of Pavarotti corrosive to art and stresses Pavarotti’s limited range of nuanced singing and roles. However, in an extensive critique of the tenor’s recordings, he finds more to praise than to blame.

Lewis, Marcia. The Private Lives of the Three Tenors: Behind the Scenes with Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and José Carreras. New York: Carol, 1996. Lewis supplies a respectful, anecdote-rich account of Pavarotti’s life and singing career.

Mayer, Martin. Grandissimo Pavarotti. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986. Offering a discography and a list of Pavarotti’s opera appearances, concerts, and recitals, Mayer gives a highly informative account of the singer’s career. In addition, he provides a brief history of tenor singing and places Pavarotti within the context of the tenor tradition, naming other past and present stars. Numerous illustrations.

Pavarotti, Adua. Pavarotti: Life with Luciano. New York: Rizzoli, 1992. This richly illustrated book by the tenor’s wife of many years offers a glimpse of his home life in his native land and clarifies the demands of his career on his family. Useful perspective on the tenor’s personality, domestic life, and interactions with others.

Pavarotti, Luciano, and William Wright. Pavarotti: My Own Story. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981. This book is an account of Pavarotti’s life and career in his own words that offers his reflections on the art of singing. It also includes chapters about the tenor written by associates, friends, and colleagues.

Remnick, David. “The Last Italian Tenor.” New Yorker, June 21, 1993. Remnick explores Pavarotti’s repertoire and place within the world of opera, finding him the essential Italian tenor. He laments the commercialism surrounding the singer and finds him on the decline.

Weinman, Jaime J. “Weighing Pavarotti.” Maclean’s, April 10, 2006. A thoughtful retrospective on Pavarotti’s career and analysis of his singing style and character.