Tenor of the Times
Op-Ed Contributor
By DAVID HAJDU
NY Times, 8 September 2007
ON Sept. 13, 1994, Luciano Pavarotti and Bryan Adams stood side by side before a symphony orchestra assembled on a vast outdoor stage in Modena, Italy, Mr. Pavarotti’s hometown, and they performed a duet of “O Sole Mio.” Mr. Pavarotti, beaming, sang the hoary old heart-stopper beautifully, almost as if he had not done it several jillion times before. Mr. Adams croaked and giggled and clutched the microphone in palpable terror. The performance, which was televised internationally and later released on video, survives on YouTube. Watching it now, in the wake of Mr. Pavarotti’s death from pancreatic cancer, one can only marvel at the incongruity of the scene and wonder what in the world was that rock star doing in the company of that guy Adams?
Luciano Pavarotti was, among many things — perhaps above all — a rock star, regardless of the fact that the music he sang happened to be opera or, on occasion, folk or popular music in the operatic mode. To recognize this is not to deny his profound gifts as an artist or to diminish his importance as the most beloved tenor of the postwar era. He was blessed with a stunningly gorgeous voice, pure yet unmistakable, which he employed with ardor in the service of beauty and joy. He brought countless listeners, including this one, to rapture.
In addition, as waves of encomiums in recent days have reminded us, his enormous appeal gave Mr. Pavarotti an evangelical dimension. More than anyone since Enrico Caruso, we are repeatedly told, Mr. Pavarotti brought opera to the masses. This is true, but not the whole truth: more than anything, what Mr. Pavarotti did was bring mass culture — particularly the sensibility of the rock ’n’ roll age — to the world of opera.
He came to see his work as a mission of outreach. In this, he was carrying on a tradition as old as opera itself. Performers, promoters and civic leaders have worked for centuries to connect opera with the populace. In the American Old West, every frontier town worth its tumbleweed erected an opera house between the Wells Fargo station and the saloon. In the early 20th century, every vaudeville bill had a “class” act — a soprano or a vocal duo who would sing excerpts from an aria or two between the magicians and the jugglers.
Mr. Pavarotti, following the lead of his hard-driving, open-eyed manager, Herbert Breslin, veered away from full-scale operas in traditional halls and branched into the recital business, where his buoyant personality could flourish and his indifference to acting and his reluctance to learn new roles would not be significant liabilities. Mr. Breslin pushed him into the mold of rock stardom, and he fit nicely. Mr. Pavarotti was the first opera star to be booked in Madison Square Garden, and he became an arena attraction, the aria Elvis. He played Vegas; he did “The Tonight Show”; he was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live”; he starred in a Hollywood movie, “Yes, Giorgio.”
Although the singer and manager parted ways acrimoniously, Mr. Pavarotti stayed for the rest of his career in the mold set by Mr. Breslin. He expanded his audience through his arena tours with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, and through a series of concerts with rock and pop singers including James Brown, Celine Dion, Meat Loaf and the Spice Girls, not to mention Bryan Adams.
What was it about Luciano Pavarotti that made him so popular among people who otherwise showed no special affection for opera? He had a peasant quality that made up for his performing an art usually associated with a cultured elite. He had a robust earthiness that signified authenticity, especially to Americans of the postwar era who prized ruralism and took vernacular artists to be truer, more legitimate, than trained urban professionals. Mr. Pavarotti, who never mastered reading music, was a largely intuitive musician, and that seemed to come across to his advantage.
He was, if not larger than life, larger in size than most humans. Indeed, he was practically the embodiment of an opera-hater’s parody conception of a male opera singer — so huge he could hardly support his own weight, robustly Italian, blustering, flamboyant and oddly child-like. With his heavy beard and long, wavy hair, his enormous eyebrows permanently cocked in seeming puzzlement, and his habitually broken English, Mr. Pavarotti seemed almost like a character from a Warner Bros. cartoon come to life, ready to sing a chorus of “Kill the Wabbit!” All this, I suspect, may well have helped him endear himself to a public inured to pop stars who look and act very much like cartoons and self-parodies.
Never much disposed to the acting side of opera, Mr. Pavarotti learned in time to play Pavarotti, regardless of the character he was supposed to be. He drew from his own personality, like a popular singer, and his sensibility was exuberant, boyish, inclined to emotional extremes, and not very reflective. The kind of opera he gave us was, on the whole, a music of voluptuous emotion, little darkness, and not much thought. There was melodrama but little drama; there were outcries of pain, but scarcely any doubt, no melancholia.
The opera of Mr. Pavarotti was always thrilling and rarely challenging. It was something less than opera in the fullness of its dramatic potential. Still, it had a beauty that was practically unnatural in its perfection. It always made me happy, and it was grand, like the man who made it.
David Hajdu, the author of “Lush Life” and “Positively Fourth Street,” is the music critic for The New Republic.
By DAVID HAJDU
NY Times, 8 September 2007
ON Sept. 13, 1994, Luciano Pavarotti and Bryan Adams stood side by side before a symphony orchestra assembled on a vast outdoor stage in Modena, Italy, Mr. Pavarotti’s hometown, and they performed a duet of “O Sole Mio.” Mr. Pavarotti, beaming, sang the hoary old heart-stopper beautifully, almost as if he had not done it several jillion times before. Mr. Adams croaked and giggled and clutched the microphone in palpable terror. The performance, which was televised internationally and later released on video, survives on YouTube. Watching it now, in the wake of Mr. Pavarotti’s death from pancreatic cancer, one can only marvel at the incongruity of the scene and wonder what in the world was that rock star doing in the company of that guy Adams?
Luciano Pavarotti was, among many things — perhaps above all — a rock star, regardless of the fact that the music he sang happened to be opera or, on occasion, folk or popular music in the operatic mode. To recognize this is not to deny his profound gifts as an artist or to diminish his importance as the most beloved tenor of the postwar era. He was blessed with a stunningly gorgeous voice, pure yet unmistakable, which he employed with ardor in the service of beauty and joy. He brought countless listeners, including this one, to rapture.
In addition, as waves of encomiums in recent days have reminded us, his enormous appeal gave Mr. Pavarotti an evangelical dimension. More than anyone since Enrico Caruso, we are repeatedly told, Mr. Pavarotti brought opera to the masses. This is true, but not the whole truth: more than anything, what Mr. Pavarotti did was bring mass culture — particularly the sensibility of the rock ’n’ roll age — to the world of opera.
He came to see his work as a mission of outreach. In this, he was carrying on a tradition as old as opera itself. Performers, promoters and civic leaders have worked for centuries to connect opera with the populace. In the American Old West, every frontier town worth its tumbleweed erected an opera house between the Wells Fargo station and the saloon. In the early 20th century, every vaudeville bill had a “class” act — a soprano or a vocal duo who would sing excerpts from an aria or two between the magicians and the jugglers.
Mr. Pavarotti, following the lead of his hard-driving, open-eyed manager, Herbert Breslin, veered away from full-scale operas in traditional halls and branched into the recital business, where his buoyant personality could flourish and his indifference to acting and his reluctance to learn new roles would not be significant liabilities. Mr. Breslin pushed him into the mold of rock stardom, and he fit nicely. Mr. Pavarotti was the first opera star to be booked in Madison Square Garden, and he became an arena attraction, the aria Elvis. He played Vegas; he did “The Tonight Show”; he was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live”; he starred in a Hollywood movie, “Yes, Giorgio.”
Although the singer and manager parted ways acrimoniously, Mr. Pavarotti stayed for the rest of his career in the mold set by Mr. Breslin. He expanded his audience through his arena tours with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, and through a series of concerts with rock and pop singers including James Brown, Celine Dion, Meat Loaf and the Spice Girls, not to mention Bryan Adams.
What was it about Luciano Pavarotti that made him so popular among people who otherwise showed no special affection for opera? He had a peasant quality that made up for his performing an art usually associated with a cultured elite. He had a robust earthiness that signified authenticity, especially to Americans of the postwar era who prized ruralism and took vernacular artists to be truer, more legitimate, than trained urban professionals. Mr. Pavarotti, who never mastered reading music, was a largely intuitive musician, and that seemed to come across to his advantage.
He was, if not larger than life, larger in size than most humans. Indeed, he was practically the embodiment of an opera-hater’s parody conception of a male opera singer — so huge he could hardly support his own weight, robustly Italian, blustering, flamboyant and oddly child-like. With his heavy beard and long, wavy hair, his enormous eyebrows permanently cocked in seeming puzzlement, and his habitually broken English, Mr. Pavarotti seemed almost like a character from a Warner Bros. cartoon come to life, ready to sing a chorus of “Kill the Wabbit!” All this, I suspect, may well have helped him endear himself to a public inured to pop stars who look and act very much like cartoons and self-parodies.
Never much disposed to the acting side of opera, Mr. Pavarotti learned in time to play Pavarotti, regardless of the character he was supposed to be. He drew from his own personality, like a popular singer, and his sensibility was exuberant, boyish, inclined to emotional extremes, and not very reflective. The kind of opera he gave us was, on the whole, a music of voluptuous emotion, little darkness, and not much thought. There was melodrama but little drama; there were outcries of pain, but scarcely any doubt, no melancholia.
The opera of Mr. Pavarotti was always thrilling and rarely challenging. It was something less than opera in the fullness of its dramatic potential. Still, it had a beauty that was practically unnatural in its perfection. It always made me happy, and it was grand, like the man who made it.
David Hajdu, the author of “Lush Life” and “Positively Fourth Street,” is the music critic for The New Republic.
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