When Luciano Pavarotti was born on the 12 October 1935 in the Northern Italian town of Modena (Reggio-Emilia), the world wasn’t aware that a real musical genius had been born.
But when he died on the 6 September 2007, the entire world stood still in disbelief for a moment. Il Maestro had died.
Between those two dates, the richest, the most exciting, the most intriguing life and career had played out in front of us, his contemporary admirers, grateful for witnessing such an extraordinary success, talent, kindness and joie de vivre.
Pavarotti starts in Modena
Pavarotti had inherited his musical genes from his father Fernando Pavarotti, a baker and a gifted singer, who himself was a tenor and had a great love of opera. Fernando sang in the Modena Chorus and he took Luciano at an early age with him to sing and perform because he already had that distinguished melodious tenor quality. The Modena Chorus took part in the Llangollen International Singing Competition in Wales and won the first place. After that achievement, a young boy, gifted with a golden voice, knew that this was going to be his future career. In Modena Pavarotti trained under Arrigo Pola and later with Ettore Campogalliani in near-by Mantova.
Early operatic debuts
After studying with Pola and Campogalliani in 1961, Pavarotti won the prestigious Concorso Internazionale and made his operatic debut as Rodolfo in La Boheme at the Teatro Reggio Emilia. That evening’s success, which made such an impression on an audience and young Pavarotti himself, was the beginning of an outstanding opera singer career of our time.
His performances, always met with the same enthusiastic response from an overjoyed audience, took place firstly in European theatres such as Zurich, Vienna, London, Milan and others.
In 1965 Pavarotti made his American debut in the production of Lucia di Lammermoor with Dame Joan Sutherland. It was Joan Sutherland who recommended Pavarotti, as the tenor who was supposed to perform with her was ill at the time. That performance took place in Miami, on the stage of the Miami-Dade Country Auditorium.
The association with the Australian Joan Sutherland took him to Australia in 1972 and after his return the same year, he performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in a production of La Fille du Regiment.
La Fille du Regiment – nine absolutely impeccable high Cs
Pavarotti’s performance in La Fille du Regiment in the Metropolitan Opera House was the one which absolutely changed the music world as his nine absolutely impeccable high Cs brought him honours of a standing ovation with seventeen curtain calls and a record-breaking reputation as a tenor. After that Pavarotti was known as “the outstanding tenor of his generation, noted for his mastery of the highest notes of a tenor’s range.”
Maestro was born
After this great performance – the Maestro was born. His success and fame spread quickly around the globe with sell-out concerts all over the world. Large publicity and a vast number of fans followed his debuts in La Boheme, La Scala, New York and San Francisco. With his triumphs one after another, he marked his achievements from Convent Garden to Rome where he sang I Lombardi with Scotto. His commercial recordings include a recital of Donizetti and Verdi arias from Don Sebastiano and Elisir d’amore with Dame Joan Sutherland.
His success went from strength to strength and he won Grammy awards and platinum and gold discs for his performances.
With Decca Records he had recorded his bestsellers which include a live concert form Carnegie Hall, anthologies of Neapolitan and other Italian songs, a collection of arias and recital programs.
With his sell-out concerts and performances he mesmerized the world. The concert in London’s Hide Park in 1993 was attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales and made headlines as a first concert in the Hyde Park to feature classical music attended by 150,000 people. In a way, he repeated it: the concert on the Great Lawn of New York’s Central Park drew the crowd of 500,000 people and the following year another spectacular performance by Pavarotti happened in front of 300,000 astounded fans as he performed at the Eiffel Tower in France.
The Three Tenors
Mario Dardi, an Italian manager and producer, came up with the idea for the Three Tenors with an aim to create a group of tenors for a concert and donate a proportion to the Jose Carreras’ Foundation. When presented with this idea Jose Carreras, along with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, agreed to perform as the Three Tenors. The concert took place in Rome 1990, the day before the FIFA World Cup and was watched by over 800 million viewers. When a recording of the concert was released, it became the biggest selling classical album in history. Because of such enormous popularity of the concert and the album itself, they performed again at the FIFA World Cup in Los Angeles (1994), Paris (1998) and Yokohama (2002). The recordings and videos of those concerts made an all-record-breaking outcome ever achieved by any recording artist.
The Three Tenors regularly performed classic and operatic arias and had great success due to not only their incredible voices but also their absolutely likable personalities.
Pavarotti and friends
Annually Pavarotti hosted charity concerts “Pavarotti and friends”, with an aim to raise money for the children in the war-torn parts of the world, held in his hometown of Modena. He invited a number of famous pop stars to perform with him and that was an offer which any self-respected pop star could not refuse. He performed together with pop stars crossing over into the realm of popular music, breaking down the belief that opera was a form of art just for the elite. In his annual charity concerts he sang with Andrea Bocelli, Sir Elton John, Sting, Bono, Celine Dion, Brian Adams and Jon Bon Jovi, to name some of them. Tirelessly he carried his humanitarian work and helped all over the world: concerts were held for War Child and victims of war in Bosnia, Guatemala and Iraq. After the war in Bosnia, Pavarotti established and financed the Pavarotti Music Centre to offer Bosnia’s artists the opportunity to develop their skills. He performed at benefit concerts raising money for victims of tragedies and wars.
Private life of Luciano Pavarotti
In September 1961 Pavarotti married his girlfriend, a young and beautiful singer Adua Veroni. Three daughters were born to Adua and Luciano: Lorenza (1962) Cristina (1964) and Giuliana (1967). Adua was his wife and business manager for 35 years. The couple divorced in 2000.
In the same year Pavarotti married his much younger secretary and had daughter Alice (2003) with her.
Arenas, concert halls and stadiums
Pavarotti made his concerts and appearances at arenas, major concert halls and stadiums all over the world: Europe, America, Australia, South Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
He performed in key tenor roles in operas such as Tosca, Aida, L’Elisir d’Amore, La Boheme, Ballo in Maschera, La Traviata, I Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Turandot, Madame Buterfly, Manon Lescaut, La Fille du Regiment and Il Trovatore.
Appearances on television and films
His first venture into film was in a comedy called ‘Yes, Giorgio’ (1982), but he was seen doubtlessly in better light in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s adaption of Rigoletto for television released the same year. He appeared in more than 20 live opera performances, all taped for television, most of them with the Metropolitan Opera.
Pavarotti’s international awards
The list of Pavarotti’s awards is one very long list, for he has been awarded a tremendous number of international awards and honors. But it is un-avoidable to include some of his awards, perhaps, the most distinguished awards, such as: the Commendatore Cross and Grand Official Cross for services to the Italian Republic, Honorary degrees from Philadelphia College of Performing Arts and the Universities of Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Parma, Urbino and San Martin of Lima, Peru; Jacques Chirac awarded him the Ville de Paris Prize, the Austrian Minister of Culture awarded him the People’s Choice Award Kammersanger.
To celebrate Pavarotti’s 30th anniversary at the Metropolitan Opera House, the Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, proclaimed the Luciano Pavarotti Day for the city, and a short time after that he was appointed United Nations Messenger for Peace by Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. President Gorbachev presented Luciano Pavarotti with the World Social Award 2001 in Vienna and one month after he was presented with the Kennedy Center Honors Awards by US President G. W. Bush.
In 2007 Pavarotti was presented by the Italian Minister of Culture with the Excellency in Culture Award for his massive contribution to the spread of Italian culture and art worldwide.
Pavarotti was also awarded numerous Emmy, Gramophone and Grammy Awards.
March 2004, Pavarotti’s final performance
In March 2004 at the New York Metropolitan Opera Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.
Nessun Dorma was part of Pavarotti's final performance, at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Turin in February 2006.
Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti dies at 71
In 2006 Pavarotti was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and only one year later the Maestro died of kidney failure in his house in Modena surrounded by his family.
His funeral ceremony in his hometown of Modena was an international event attended by a large number of celebrities coming to Modena from all over the world.
Tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras led tributes to the Maestro. Domingo said: “I always admired the God-given glory of his voice,” and Jose Carreras called him “one of the most important tenors of all time.”
Sources
- The official Luciano Pavarotti website
Branka Cubrilo - Branka Cubrilo is a novelist, short story writer and a journalist. Her novels and short stories are published worldwide.
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