Luciano Pavarotti is considered by many to be the most celebrated tenor of his generation. His voice, amplified in mammoth stadium concerts, reproduced on record and film soundtracks, and broadcast internationally on television and radio, reached a wider audience than that of any other opera singer in history. While appearing in Spain in 1988, he was given over a hundred curtain calls.
Pavarotti was born on October 12, 1935, in Modena, Italy. His father was a baker who had a good singing voice, but was too afflicted by stage fright to perform in public. Pavarotti grew up to the sound of his father singing the melodies of the Italian operatic repertory while he worked. From a very early age, the young Pavarotti wanted to be an opera singer.
However, after leaving school he became a teacher, and it was not until he was 20 that he started formal voice training. His first teacher was Arrigo Pola, with whom he studied for six months. Pola followed a traditional approach, making his student sing vocalisations and exercises rather than arias. Later, Pavarotti studied in Mantua with Ettore Campagalliani, riding the bus to lessons with his friend, the soprano Mirella Freni. During this time he supported himself by selling insurance.
In 1961, Pavarotti won the international Peri Prize in Piacenza. This led to him making his operatic debut as Rodolfo in PUCCINI’S La bohème in the Reggio Emilia Theatre under the baton of Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, an influential conductor who liked Pavarotti’s work. Pavarotti’s diction was flawless, and his voice had no “break.” (A break, or unwelcome change in timbre, can occur when a singer transfers from chest to head resonance.)
Now launched on his career, Pavarotti married Adua Veroni. Still singing within Italy, he appeared as the Duke in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Alfredo in La Traviata, Lieutenant Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Edgardo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. His first engagement to sing outside Italy was in 1963 when he appeared as Edgardo in Amsterdam, followed by the role of Rodolfo at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. In 1964, he returned to England to sing the role of Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo at Glyndebourne in southern England.
When Pavarotti appeared in Bellini’s La Sonnambula with the Australian soprano Joan SUTHERLAND, she was so impressed with him that she invited him to join her own company which was about to tour Australia. Together with her husband and artistic director, Richard Bonynge, she was leading a revival of the bel canto repertory of Bellini and Donizetti.
Pavarotti became a star in his own right in Donizetti’s La fille du régiment. In this opera, the tenor must produce six high Cs in quick succession. Pavarotti tossed them off, according to one critic, “like rice at a wedding.”
From the early 1980s through the late 1990s, Pavarotti extended his activities beyond the operatic stage. He starred in a film, Yes, Giorgio, and appeared in concert with popular artists such as Elton JOHN and STING. But his most celebrated venture was teaming up with Placido DOMINGO and José Carreras to form “The Three Tenors.” Together the star tenors enjoyed phenomenal success performing at massive venues such as the Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, Madison Square Garden in New York, and, in 1998, at the base of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, an event viewed by millions worldwide.
Jane Prendergast
SEE ALSO:
LEVINE, JAMES; OPERA.
FURTHER READING
Resting, Jürgen, with Susan H. Ray, trans. Luciano Pavarotti: The Myth of the Tenor (London: Robson, 1996);
Pavarotti, Luciano, and William Wright. My World (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Great Tenors of Our Time; Verismo Arias; Ponchielli: La Gioconda; Rossini: Guglielmo Tell; Verdi: La Traviata.