The sun king
-
- September
- 4
Tributes to singers are often more talk than music. How fortunate then that “Pavarotti: A Life in Seven Arias” — airing on PBS’ “Great Performances” at 8 p.m. Sunday on Thirteen/WNET to mark the first anniversary of his death — doesn’t stint on the music. Indeed, as the title suggests, the program cleverly uses some of the music most often associated with Lucianissimo as the framework for the story of his life.There’s the ardently romantic “Che gelida manina,” which Rodolfo sings in Puccini’s “La Bohème,” the role that launched Pavarotti’s career; “Pour mon ame,” from Donizetti’s “La Fille du Régiment,” which cemented his fame in America as “the king of the high Cs”; “Nessun dorma” from “Turandot” (Puccini again), which became the signature of the World Cup, the Turin Olympics and the tenor himself; and “E lucevan le stelle,” sung by the doomed Cavaradossi in Puccini’s “Tosca,” Pavarotti’s last operatic performance.
In-between there’s César Franck’s “Panis Angelicus,” which he sang with his father, a baker who was also a talented choral tenor; the rakish “Questa o quella” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” which encapsulated Pavarotti’s superstardom; and finally, “Ingemisco” from Verdi’s “Requiem,” which might as well have been the singer’s own.
There’s also talk — not too much and most of it by insightful colleagues like Placido Domingo and José Carreras (the surviving two-thirds of the Three Tenors); sopranos Montserrat Caballé and Renata Scotto of Armonk; and Juan Diego Flórez, who inherited Pavarotti’s nine high Cs in “La Fille.”
Before going on in the 2006 Laurent Pelly production of the opera, Flórez says he called Pavarotti, (seen here courtesy of “Great Performances”), who was marvelously supportive.
“Happiness in the voice,” Flórez says, “that’s very important. Pavarotti had happiness in the voice.”
It’s an observation echoed by Carreras, who says Pavarotti had “the sun in his voice.”
That was a common reaction to a naturally beautiful voice married to immaculate technique. In this age of “American Idol,” we tend to forget that singers are born and made. Early in his career, Pavarotti worked hard to master proper breath control and legato, or seamless singing, which enabled him to toss off coloratura runs and bring different colors to the voice. Pay attention to his use of dynamics in “Una furtiva lagrima,” an aria for the good-natured bumpkin Nemorino in Donizetti’s comic “L’Elisir d’Amore,” one of his greatest roles. It’s a masterfully intense display of shading.
Shadow is the sun’s constant companion. Domingo shrewdly notes that Pavarotti’s famed joviality was part Pavarotti, part media invention. Underneath — particularly at the cancer-ridden end of his life when the waxy figure had replaced his handsome youth and Ruthian prime — he seemed a particularly fragile man.
In “A Life in Seven Arias,” Pavarotti talks about being afraid before going onstage as well as the affection he felt from audiences.
He was, Caballé says, a most human being. And as such, he understood the ultimate human dilemma — that fear is the price we must pay for love.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 1:48 pm by Georgette Gouveia.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
