Luciano Pavarotti (12 October 19356 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, gaining worldwide fame for his tone and the nickname "King of the High Cs".
As one of the Three Tenors, who performed their first concert during the 1990 FIFA World Cup before a global audience, Pavarotti became well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. From the beginning of his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy to his final performance of "Nessun dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Pavarotti was at his best in bel canto operas, pre-Aida Verdi roles, and Puccini works such as La bohème, Tosca, Turandot and Madama Butterfly. He sold more than 100 million records, and the first Three Tenors recording became the best-selling classical album of all time. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work on behalf of refugees and the Red Cross, amongst others. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1988. Pavarotti died from pancreatic cancer on 6 September 2007.
Biography Early life and musical training Luciano Pavarotti was born on 12 October 1935 in a public housing block on the outskirts of Modena in Northern Italy, the son of Fernando Pavarotti, a baker and amateur tenor, and Adele Venturi, a cigar factory worker. Although he spoke fondly of his childhood, the family had little money; its four members were crowded into a two-room apartment. According to Pavarotti, his father had a fine tenor voice but rejected the possibility of a singing career because of nervousness. World War II forced the family out of the city in 1943. For the following year, they rented a single room from a farmer in the neighbouring countryside, where the young Pavarotti developed an interest in farming.
After abandoning the dream of becoming a football goalkeeper, Pavarotti spent seven years in vocal training. Pavarotti's earliest musical influences were his father's records, most of them featuring the popular tenors of the day—Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Tito Schipa, and Enrico Caruso. Pavarotti's favourite tenor and idol was Giuseppe Di Stefano. He was also deeply influenced by Mario Lanza, saying: "In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate him in the mirror". At around the age of nine, he began singing with his father in a small local church choir.
In addition to music, as a child, Pavarotti enjoyed playing football. When he graduated from the Scuola Magistrale, he was interested in pursuing a career as a professional football goalkeeper, but his mother convinced him to train as a teacher. He subsequently taught in an elementary school for two years but finally decided to pursue a music career. His father, recognising the risk involved, only reluctantly gave his consent. Pavarotti began the serious study of music in 1954 at the age of 19 with Arrigo Pola, a respected teacher and professional tenor in Modena who offered to teach him without remuneration. According to conductor Richard Bonynge, Pavarotti never learned to read music.
In 1955, he experienced his first singing success when he was a member of the Corale Rossini, a male voice choir from Modena that also included his father, which won first prize at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales. He later said that this was the most important experience of his life, and that it inspired him to become a professional singer.
When his teacher, Arrigo Pola, moved to Japan, Pavarotti became a student of Ettore Campogalliani, who at that time was also teaching Pavarotti's childhood friend, Mirella Freni, whose mother worked with Luciano's mother in the cigar factory. Like Pavarotti, Freni went on to become a successful opera singer; they collaborated in various stage performances and recordings together.
During his years of musical study, Pavarotti held part-time jobs to sustain himself—first as an elementary school teacher and then as an insurance salesman. The first six years of study resulted in only a few recitals, all in small towns and without pay. When a nodule developed on his vocal cords, causing a "disastrous" concert in Ferrara, he decided to give up singing. Pavarotti attributed his immediate improvement to the psychological release connected with this decision. Whatever the reason, the nodule not only disappeared but, as he related in his autobiography: "Everything I had learned came together with my natural voice to make the sound I had been struggling so hard to achieve".
Career: 1960s–1970s Pavarotti began his career as a tenor in smaller regional Italian opera houses. After winning the Achille Peri International Competition, he made his debut as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia in April 1961, conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli and staged by Mafalda Favero. His first known recording of "Che gelida manina" was recorded during this performance.
In December 1961, Pavarotti made his first international appearance in La traviata in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. On 23 February 1963, he debuted at the Vienna State Opera in the same role. In March and April 1963, Pavarotti performed again in Vienna as Rodolfo and as Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto. The same year, he performed his first solo non-opera concert outside Italy when he sang in Dundalk, Ireland, for the St Cecilia's Gramophone Society. He was engaged by the Dublin Grand Opera Society to sing The Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto in May and June, and his Royal Opera House debut, where he replaced an indisposed Giuseppe Di Stefano as Rodolfo. In September 1963, he made his debut at Covent Garden in La Boheme, which gave his career a boost.
In 1964, Pavarotti appeared as Idamante in Idomeneo at Glyndebourne and was engaged by the Dublin Grand Opera Society to sing Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème and Alfredo in Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. Reviewers favourably comment on his singing.
Pavarotti sang with Joan Sutherland when he made his American début with the Greater Miami Opera in February 1965, singing in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor on the stage of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami. The tenor that was scheduled to perform that night became ill with no understudy. Sutherland recommended Pavarotti as he was acquainted with the role. On 28 April, Pavarotti made his La Scala debut in the revival of the Franco Zeffirelli production of La bohème, with his childhood friend Mirella Freni singing Mimi and Herbert von Karajan conducting. Karajan had requested the singer's engagement.
Joan Sutherland and her conductor husband, Richard Bonynge sought a tall tenor to take along on their 1965 tour to Australia. During the Australia tour in summer 1965, Sutherland and Pavarotti sang forty performances over two months. Pavarotti later credited Sutherland for the breathing and diaphragm technique that sustained him through his career.
After the extended Australian tour, he returned to La Scala, where he added Tebaldo from I Capuleti e i Montecchi to his repertoire on 26 March 1966, with Giacomo Aragall as Romeo.
His first appearance as Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du régiment took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 2 June 1966. In this performance, he was the first tenor to deliver nine natural high Cs in the aria "Ah! mes amis".
He scored another major triumph in Rome on 20 November 1969 when he sang in I Lombardi opposite Renata Scotto. This was recorded on a private label and widely distributed, as were various recordings of his I Capuleti e i Montecchi, usually with Aragall. Early commercial recordings included a recital of Donizetti (the aria from Don Sebastiano were particularly highly regarded) and Verdi arias, as well as a complete L'elisir d'amore with Sutherland.
His breakthrough in the United States came on 17 February 1972, in a production of La fille du régiment at New York's Metropolitan Opera, in which he hit nine high Cs in the signature aria and had seventeen curtain calls. This earned him the nickname "King of the High Cs".
Pavarotti sang his international recital début at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, on 1 February 1973, as part of the college's Fine Arts Program, now known as the Harriman–Jewell Series. According to his manager at the time, Pavarotti clutched a handkerchief throughout this recital because he had a lingering cold. Pavarotti himself explained that he needed the handkerchief, since he didn't know what to do with his hands. The prop became a signature part of his solo performances. He began to give frequent television performances, starting with his performances as Rodolfo (La bohème) in the first Live from the Met telecast in March 1977, which attracted one of the largest audiences ever for a televised opera. He won Grammy awards and platinum and gold discs for his performances.
In 1976, Pavarotti debuted at the Salzburg Festival, appearing in a solo recital on 31 July, accompanied by pianist Leone Magiera. Pavarotti returned to the festival in 1978 with a recital and as the Italian singer in Der Rosenkavalier in 1983 with Idomeneo, and both in 1985 and 1988 with solo recitals. In 1979, he was profiled in a cover story in the weekly magazine Time. That same year saw Pavarotti's return to the Vienna State Opera after an absence of fourteen years. With Herbert von Karajan conducting, Pavarotti sang Manrico in Il trovatore. In 1978, he appeared in a solo recital on Live from Lincoln Center.
Career: 1980s–1990s At the beginning of the 1980s, he set up The Pavarotti International Voice Competition for young singers, performing with the winners in 1982 in excerpts of La bohème and L'elisir d'amore. The second competition, in 1986, staged excerpts of La bohème and Un ballo in maschera. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of his career, he brought the winners of the competition to Italy for gala performances of La bohème in Modena and Genoa, and then to China, where they staged performances of La bohème in Beijing (Peking). To conclude the visit, Pavarotti performed the inaugural concert in the Great Hall of the People before 10,000 people, receiving a standing ovation for nine high Cs. The third competition in 1989 again staged performances of L'elisir d'amore and Un ballo in maschera. The winners of the fifth competition accompanied Pavarotti in performances in Philadelphia in 1997.
In the mid-1980s, Pavarotti returned to two opera houses that had provided him with important breakthroughs, the Vienna State Opera and La Scala. Vienna saw Pavarotti as Rodolfo in La bohème with Carlos Kleiber conducting, and again Mirella Freni was Mimi; as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore; as Radames in Aida conducted by Lorin Maazel; as Rodolfo in Luisa Miller; and as Gustavo in Un ballo in maschera conducted by Claudio Abbado. In 1996, Pavarotti appeared for the last time at the Staatsoper in Andrea Chénier. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, promoters Tibor Rudas and Harvey Goldsmith booked Pavarotti into increasingly larger venues.
In 1985, Pavarotti sang Radames at La Scala opposite Maria Chiara in a Luca Ronconi production conducted by Maazel, recorded on video. His performance of the aria "Celeste Aida" received a two-minute ovation on the opening night. He was reunited with Mirella Freni for the San Francisco Opera production of La bohème in 1988, also recorded on video. In 1992, La Scala saw Pavarotti in a new Zeffirelli production of Don Carlos, conducted by Riccardo Muti.