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Luciano
Pavarotti
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Pavarotti,
Luciano, internationally famous
Italian tenor, whose dramatic
roles and powerful voice have
gained him a superstar status
akin to that of Enrico Caruso in
the early years of the 20th
century.
He
studied first in his birthplace,
Modena, then in Mantua, before
making his professional debut in
Reggio nell'Emilia in 1961, as
Rodolfo in La Bohème. His
debut at Covent Garden in 1963
brought him to the attention of
the Australian soprano Joan
Sutherland and launched his
international career. Pavarotti
was to form a famous partnership
with Sutherland: he was part of
her company that toured Australia
in 1965, learned much about
breath support and flexible
singing from her, and frequently
sang Edgardo to
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her
title role in Donizetti's Lucia
di Lammermoor. The two made many
recordings together, especially
in Sutherland's core repertoire
of Bellini and Donizetti.
He
made his debut at the New York
Metropolitan Opera, again as
Rodolfo, in 1968.
Pavarotti's
ascent to superstardom came with
the use of his recording of
Puccini's aria "Nessun Dorma" as
a television signature tune for
the 1990 World Cup, and with an
associated televised concert in
Rome, with two other great
tenors, Plácido Domingo
and José Carreras. The
"Three Tenors" concept was spiced
by Pavarotti's history of sniping
at Domingo during the 1980s, but
the formula was so successful
that the Tenors reunited for the
1994 World Cup, and on other
later occasions. Unlike his
collaborators, Pavarotti has made
a speciality of stadium-sized
recitals, singing to thousands
with large screen video
projection. Popular Neapolitan
songs often feature in these
concerts. Following the end of
the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War,
Pavarotti became well known in a
new context as one of the most
prominent supporters of the
charity War Child. He succeeded
in raising funds for the
construction of the Pavarotti
Music Centre in Mostar, which
opened in December 1997 and aims
to provide music and art therapy
for the children of the
war-ravaged city.
Pavarotti's
vocal quality is full and open
throughout his range; his
penetrating high register is
particularly admired. He is not a
great actor, partly because his
physique tends to restrict his
movement on stage, and he
suffered some critical failures
in the 1990s, among them
productions of Verdi's Otello and
Don Carlos. His vocal colour and
sheer communicativeness, however,
have lost little as he has
progressed into his seventh
decade.
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