Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Luciano Pavarotti

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 09-06-2007, 12:27 AM:

From NEWS.com.au

Luciano Pavarotti dead at 71

By staff writers

September 06, 2007 03:10pm
Article from: NEWS.com.au

LUCIANO Pavarotti, one of the greatest tenors of his generation, has died at his home in Modena, his manager says.

"Luciano Pavarotti died one hour ago," manager Terri Robson said in a telephone text message to media.

In an email statement to the Associated Press Robson said Pavarotti died at his home in Modena, Italy, at 5am local time (1pm AEST).

"The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterised his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness," the statement said.

Earlier, family and friends had gathered at the home of the Italian opera star as he lay unconscious and battling kidney failure.

The 71-year-old tenor, who helped bring opera to the masses and performed to vast stadium audiences around the world underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in July 2006.

Pavarotti shot to fame with a stand-in appearance at London's Covent Garden in 1963 and soon had critics gushing about his voluminous voice.

Perhaps his biggest gift to the music world was when he teamed up with Spanish stars Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras at the 1990 soccer World Cup and introduced operatic classics to an estimated 800 million television viewers round the globe.

Sales of opera albums shot up after the gala concert in Rome's Baths of Caracalla and since then Puccini's aria Nessun Dorma from his opera Turandot has been heavily associated with Pavarotti and soccer.

Like most Italian boys, Pavarotti used to dream of being a soccer star.

After the surgery in July last year in New York, he retreated to his Modena villa and had to cancel his first planned public reappearance a few months later.

Taken to hospital with a fever last month, Pavarotti was released on August 25 after undergoing more than two weeks of tests and treatment.

Earlier in his life Pavarotti's parents wanted him to have a steady job and for a while he worked as an insurance salesman and teacher.

But he started singing on the operatic circuit and his big break came thanks to another Italian opera great, Giuseppe di Stefano, who dropped out of a London performance of La Boheme in 1963.

Covent Garden had lined up "this large young man" as a possible stand-in and a star was born.

He went on to perform across Europe before crossing the Atlantic in February 1965 for a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in Miami, Florida with Australia's Joan Sutherland as Lucia.

It was with Sutherland in February 1972 that Pavarotti truly came of age, taking Covent Garden and the New York Metropolitan Opera by storm with a sparkling production of another Donizetti favourite, La Fille du Regiment.

He famously hit nine high C notes in a row in Daughter of the Regiment at New York's Metropolitan Opera, which he referred to as "my home".

Thirty years later, Pavarotti was still one of the highest paid classical singers even though his public performances were fewer and further between.

Medical problems beset "Big Luciano" in the final years of his career, forcing him to cancel several dates of his marathon worldwide farewell tour.

With Reuters and AFP

-----------------------

I had the pleasure of seeing him in concert in Sydney in 1990. When he let go there was no tenor who could come near him. Spine tingling stuff indeed.

RIP.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-06-2007, 04:01 AM:

Once again, that aria from the 3rd Act of Puccini's "Turnadot" Nessun Dorma with Pavarotti at the helm:

".....But my secret is hidden within me,
my name no one shall know..."

Yes, R.I.P .. -Monte

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 09-06-2007, 05:54 PM:

Alvaro: Or muoio tranquillo,
Vi stringo al cor mio...

Carlo: Amico, fidate nel cielo,
Adio.

Alvaro: Adio.

(Il chiurgo ed i soldati transportano il ferito nella stanza da letto.)
[Verdi, La Forza del Destino, III,4]

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-06-2007, 06:37 PM:

Pavarotti was a Miami city favorite who did his first U.S.A. performance for local concert promoter Judy Drucker. We saw him at a concert on the sands of Miami Beach while he battled the humidity and ocean breezes to give a performance that ran almost twice as long as scheduled as he pleased the audience with requests....a trouper. I also had the pleasure to see Joan Sutherland in her final U.S. tour at the Gusman Theatre. She did a sound check in which the house sound was not required since she was capable of projecting the 130 foot depth of the house without amplification [Cool]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 09-06-2007, 07:10 PM:

While I'm NO fan of opera, I certainty have heard much about the operatic tenor for many years.

The thing that really shocked me is he was willing to risk his voice by being an avid smoker for many years.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 09-07-2007, 04:27 AM:

There were some classical singers who actually claimed that smoking enhanced their voices, e.g. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who famously smoked 80 a day throughout his singing career, and as far as I know still does.

I knew of Pavarotti before he became a celebrity figure outside opera circles, because my grandmother was a former professional musician and Italian opera fanatic who had several of his records. She was actually quite sniffy about his singing, claiming that he didn't have anything like the technical skills of Caruso or Gigli. But whatever your verdict on that score, you can't deny that using Nessun Dorma as the signature tune for the 1992 World Cup was one of the most brilliant bits of marketing ever. I was in my final year of high school at the time, and students who previously listened to Michael Jackson and Duran Duran suddenly started listening to Puccini (albeit not for very long). Not since Bugs Bunny did Wagner and Rossini was anyone able to give opera such wide popular appeal.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-07-2007, 10:20 AM:

I never knew much about Pavarotti and I don't like opera but he seemed cool to me. So I'm sad he's gone.

Posted by Louis Belloisy (Member # 3836) on 09-08-2007, 08:21 PM:

Pavarotti was the most famous tenor since the great Enrico Caruso. I do so love his music. Thanks Monte for the link, it brought a tear to my eye.

I have to this day, a 15 minute 35mm section of The Great Caruso starring Mario Lanzo, where he sings the Ave Maria. I play it on our big screen once in a while. Its very moving.

lou

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-09-2007, 03:36 PM:

I was lucky enough to be acting production manager at our theatre complex when Pavarotti gave a gala performance for us. We discussed amplification and, unlike others who have performed on our stage who walk off in a huff if you even mention mild reenforcement (and then cannot be heard in the balcony or rear mezz), Luciano discussed it openly and of course, with everyone in the back of the house we sang a few bars and it was immediately clear that not a single piece of electronic equipment would need to be turned on.

He was a delight to work with -- actually more at home with stage hands and techies than he seemed to be with the arts board members socialite big-wigs.

A beautiful sound has been silenced. R.I.P.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 09-09-2007, 03:55 PM:

quote: Frank Angel
He was a delight to work with -- actually more at home with stage hands and techies than he seemed to be with the arts board members socialite big-wigs.

I've met a few 'big names' among actors, musicians, film directors and cinematographers over the years,and I would say that applies to most of the ones that I've met; unfortunately, the others tend to be the exact opposite; a real pain to deal with. I'm not going to mention any names.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-09-2007, 04:25 PM:

Of the best who I've mixed live sound for -- Pearl Bailey. She was the earth mother. EVERYONE warmed to her. At the time she was in poor health and when she walked into the building (with none of the usual gaggle of sycophants hanging on, only her driver to carry her bags, she took one look and the stairs to the dressing rooms and told us she just couldn't climb them. The entire crew, including the lighting designer, the sound crew, even the house manager helped build a small dressing room off stage out of stage flats.

She gave a great performance with multiple encores. But during on of the intermissions, she wispered something to her driver who then disappeared. But during the last encore, he returned with kegs of beer, a box full of all kinds of top brands of liquor. Then after she asked that everyone who wanted to autographs to come to the stage where she greated them and spoke to every single person in a line of over 100 and signed their records and such, then she came backstage, and sat down with all of us in her makeshift dressing room and handed out the spirits and joked with us for another hour before she left. It was a night to remember.

There were also nights to forget, but I'll leave that to another thread.

Except, let me recount just this one quick one. We played Mel Torme. To say he was difficult is an understatement, so much so that I was warned by another sound mixer about him a week before he set foot in our theatre. I was young, green and understandably nervous. I tried to be cool. If you don't know Mr. Torme, he's short and how shall we say, "stout." And he's got an Elmer Fudd face. That said, over the talk-back system during rehearsal, I thought I would ease tension by refereing to his well-known nickname, which supposedly made reference to the ultra smooth quality of his vocal style. So I said how great to have "The Velvet Frog" on our stage. I thought this was quite clever of me to work this into the conversation to kind of break the ice. But why did he walk off stage?

His nickname, for those of you too young to know, is "The Velvet FOG." [Embarrassed]

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 09-10-2007, 08:59 PM:

And Mr Torme wrote a book back in the late '60's talking about what a BITCH Judy Garland was. I've heard before that he was a pain...

Mr Pavarotti was one of my favorites. I have several of his recordings, and a copy of the THREE TENORS show that he did for PBS.