Amidst all of the excitement of this first week of classes – for me at Carthage and for Kathy at Schulte – was also the sadness of Luciano Pavarotti’s death at the age of 71. As I type those words I can still scarcely believe that they’re true. Somehow, for all the health issues with which he contended over the years, there still seemed to be this air of indestructibility around him. Somehow, it seemed like the world would always have Luciano Pavarotti. But no. He’s really gone- and the Three Tenors are now Two.
One of the most striking things about his death is that people went out of their way to mention his death to me – and in several cases to express their condolences to me- as if I had just lost a friend. Two different colleagues in the music department did that and I took at least one phone call at the radio station like that. And this indeed is a loss I feel more acutely than I would have anticipated. Part of it is that his professional career began on the opera stage in 1961, the year after I was born, and he was in the first flush of superstardom when I first turned on to opera as a college freshman. So my life and his career were sort of in sync in a way that I only realize now.
Another mark of the closeness I felt towards this charismatic singer is that I came to really take him for granted over the course of many years. Part of it was that he was so ever- present on television like nobody else in opera, and after awhile it felt like you couldn’t turn around without seeing Pavarotti and hearing that voice. Also, I’m enough of a grump that I found myself growing irritated when Pavarotti would start making music with people like Sting and Madonna and Elton John on his Pavarotti and Friends programs.Now I’m royally embarassed at my attitude, especially because almost all of those cross-over projects with well-known pop artists were done for charity. Someone who sings in a trio named Caritas (Latin for “charity”) should know better.
There actually were some things for which Pavarotti deserved criticism. One was that he really never learned to be a consummate musician. He barely read music – was not much of an actor – and he really tended to sing everything in pretty much the same way. And although he was for the most part a fine colleague, he was not immune to the selfishness common to highly pampered, entourage-encircled celebrities. And one of the most damaging missteps in his career was when he cancelled too many performances at the Lyric Opera of Chicago – in fact 26 out of the 41 performances he had been contracted to sing there – before General Manager Ardis Krainik finally said “enough is enough” and fired him. The move made headlines. Pavarotti’s resume also includes headlining one of the worst movies ever made- “Yes, Giorgio,” which was released in theaters while I was in graduate school. He sang gloriously but otherwise the movie was a complete mess.
I think I eventually regained my appreciation and affection for Pavarotti for several different reasons. One was that got caught up like the rest of the world did in the phenomenon of the Three Tenors. You may or may not know that the reason for that extraordinary collaboration was the affection which both Pavarotti and Domingo – at times unhappy rivals – had for their younger colleague, Jose Carreras. When Carreras was diagnosed with and hospitalized for lukemia, both Pavarotti and Domingo did all they could to support and help him- and in doing so, found themselves burying the hatchet after years of tension between them. And when Carreras recovered and could resume his career, a joint concert with the three of them seemed like the perfect way to celebrate. That Pavarotti, still the biggest celebrity of the three of them, would choose to be a part of something like that – willingly sharing the stage like that – said something very profound about what kind of a human being he really was, for all of his superstar ways.
Ironically, I think I regained still more affection for Pavarotti in the waning years of his career when he began to suffer professional reversals of one kind or another. The essential Pavarotti sound was remarkably untarnished by time, but his high notes- once his great glory – became increasingly unreliable – and he also became more and more immobile onstage due to his obesity. But he soldiered on and his operatic performances became rare events fraught with all kinds of tension. . . .would he appear or wouldn’t he? And how well would he sing? I still remember how scary it was to listen to his final Met broadcast as Radames in Aida. The terribly difficult aria “Celesta Aida” comes right at the beginning, and I can still remember standing in my kitchen, listening to the beginning of that aria with a knot in my stomach. . . scared to death that it would fall apart or that he would crack terribly. But he survived with honor intact, and my enormous sense of relief says something about Pavarotti and the affection he inspired. I wanted him to do well – to defy time – to emerge unscathed – because I liked him, just like so much of the world did. And part of his magic was that he sang as though he liked us in the audience in return.
I saw Pavarotti twice in person. Once was during his last run at the Lyric – singing the tenor role in Verdi’s A Masked Ball. He was really overweight at that point and garbed in costumes which Marshall called “tents”- but boy he sang well. And a few years later, Marshall and I saw him in concert at the Rosemont Horizon. It was supposed to be a joint concert tour with Joan Sutherland- and when she had to cancel the entire tour because of health trouble, we felt enormously gypped. Now I feel so thankful that we didn’t angrily turn in our tickets – I’m glad we “settled” for hearing just Pavarotti. He turned the place on its ear that night – and I can still hear the ecstatic fans sitting right behind us who screamed their encore requests at the top of their lungs at the end of the concert: “LA DONNA E MOBILE!!!” “CIELO E MAR!!!’ “O SOLE MIO!!!” “MAMMA!!!!” At the time I was in my grumpy stage with Pavarotti and amused at those who were so bonkers about him. Now I count my lucky stars that I was there that night and that I can say with profound gratitude in my heart “I saw Pavarotti in person. Twice”
pictured: a moment from the 1977 Live from the Met telecast of Puccini’s La Boheme – the very first of the many such telecasts which have occurred over the years. This can be purchased on DVD and it shows Pavarotti at his best in one of his finest roles. This particular still comes from an intermission interview during that performance when actor/ host Tony Randall asked him about a number of things including the Italian tradition of opera singers always performing with a bent nail in their pocket for good luck.