Homage to Luciano Pavarotti: A Deafening Silence

-- End Ad Box --->• Una maravilla de Reconditat Armonia
Can you hear the silence? Luciano Pavarotti has been• Vamos Luciano! Eres fuerte y te recuperaras de
forced to cancel his performances for rest of thistu endermedad. Ritorna vincitor!
year because of the removal of a malignant• Oooooo…Goosebumps!
pancreatic mass.• Caro Maestro Luciano sei stato Grande.
He has impressed his doctors with his physical and• This man will always live in my heart. Such an
emotional resilience, and plans to resume in 2007. Atamazingly beautiful instrument.
the age of 70, he has been singing for us for over 40• Mio Dio!
years.• Pavarotto! Ecce il uomo.
The silence of the media has also been deafening. The• The last “vincero” was god’s own
news has been spread mostly by word-of-mouth. Clubvoice.
Vivo Per Lei members email me daily — “I• Ay, Dios mio.
have just learned the news.”• Je veux morire. (I want to die)
Like the blogger who wrote, “He has been the• When he was in his prime, his voice was the most
soundtrack for much of my life,” Pavarotti is sothrilling in the history of recorded sound.
much a part of my life, I knew almost nothing about• Thank you, Pav!
him. He rarely grants interviews. Ah well, if one canThe resilience? The attitude? When interviewed about
sing, why talk?his retirement by bbc in 2005, Jeremy Paxman kept
By all reports, he isn’t a complicated man. Italianpumping for something that simply isn’t there.
to the core, he appreciates food, women, song, family,Like what was the worst thing that had ever
home, and the place where he grew up. And his fans.happened to him “during that time.” “Which
These are the things of which he speaks.time?” Pavarotti asks.
“I can tell you which aria the audience like,” heThe nightmares, Paxman wants to know about.
says. “Nessun Dorma.”“It was a constant pleasure,” Pavarotti replies.
I looked for his opinions about the grand themes of“Even when things go wrong?” asks Paxman?
opera — the agony and the ecstasy —“Yes, so what” replies Pavarotti. “I am a very
but like his fellow Italian, Verdi, he seems to distill life tooptimistic human being in one sense, yes, but I like the
its essence and keep it close to home. “For me,truth.”
music making is the most joyful activity possible,” heThe Italians, of course, are never too direct about
says, “the most perfect expression of anythings, that concept they call “garbo.” It means
emotion.” (See more quotes here: )“polite,” “kind,” “kindness,” or
This from a man whose voice can reach inside you,“graciousness,” but, a synecdoche in itself, in the
wring you inside out, and leave you weak andVenetian dialect it means “curt,” or “abrupt.” In
weeping, not knowing if its suffering or bliss; like life, theincludes a heady fusion of fact and fiction, which may
licking of honey off a thorn.be a secret to resilience, and feeds the fantasy the
He speaks of his voice as something separate … hisrest of the world has that Italians are somehow
instrument.enjoying more (and suffering more) than the rest of us.
“You don’t need any brains to listen toAnd to this blend of realistic illusion, or fantasized reality,
music,” he says. He has brought more people intoyou would say “it can’t be that
the world of opera than anyone in history, exceptcomplicated,” and an Italian would say, “it
perhaps Verdi. As he so graciously puts it, “I mightisn’t that simple.”
just have introduced some people to this music!”Still after the goat, Paxman pursues, “Some people
To read about opera, he says, is like making love bysay you should have retired some time ago.”
mail. I followed this prescription in my own learningPavarotti replies, “Well, some people are probably
process. Tossing aside the worthless college textbookright!”
on opera a friend lent me, I bought CDs and attendedBesides, we all know he won’t retire. It is hard
operas.for a young man in Italy, because the men work
Already familiar with Pavarotti, I’d been exploringforever. Pavarotti’s father was singing at 90,
lately -- Wunderlich, Caruso, Gedda, Bjorling; like mostand Pavarotti plans the same.
women, I prefer the tenors. And then the news aboutDoes he read music, Paxman wants to know. His
Pavarotti took me back home. My sister had emailedreply is incomprehensible, and truly why would we
me, “That man has given me more hours of blisscare? He sings it. Who cares if he reads it?
than any person on earth.” The King of High Cs. InThe indefatigable Paxman tries one last time: “But
La Fille du Regiment at the Met, in 1972, he sang 9will you be glad to stop performing?”
effortless high Cs, sending the audience wild. He also“No,” he replies.
holds the Guiness record for most curtain calls“Will you miss it?”
— 165.“No.”
“To understand his success,” writes his wife of 35He then mentions the “beautiful companies” he
years, Adua, “and what it is about his voice thathas — family, friends, students, and adds, “I
stops people in their tracks …” we must go backam not missing it already. This was, of course, before
to his origins.the Farewell Tour of 2006.
Luciano Pavarotti was born in Modena, Italy, OctoberIt is just as typical that Pavarotti has expressed no
12, 1935, an only child. His father, Fernando, sang tenoracrimony in response to his former manager’s
well until 2 weeks before his death, at 90, and Lucianobook, THE KING & I.: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano
plans to do the same. Modena is in a region of ItalyPavarotti's Rise to Fame by His Manager, Friend and
that produces strong, broad-chested men such as canSometime Adversary ( He in fact expresses is
sing opera, and Luciano’s extraverted andgratitude.
optimistic temperament made him well-suited for the“I never got to see him at the Met,” my sister
rigors of the operatic lifestyle.writes me. Well, I will take her to see Pavarotti at the
He was taken to his first opera at the age of 12, butMet, when he returns in 2007. I’m part Italian, you
his singing career began much earlier. “At the age ofknow. I don’t know his schedule, or if he will be
4,” he says, “I jump on the table. I am a little tenor.able to sing, or how well, but we will not go to hear him,
And I begin to sing, La Donna e Mobile.”we will go to pay him homage, and to thank him for
One of the 25 most-recognized people in the world, hethe memories. And if that concept remains a fantasy,
was the first opera star to really make use of thewell you don’t need to be able to read music in
media. Almost his entire career is recorded. His concertorder to sing.
in Central Park in June of ’93 was attended byIn closing, I may have, unfaithfully, listened to other
500,000, with millions more watching on TV. However,tenors, but Pavarotti was my Christmas for many
he says, “Above all, I am an opera singer. This isyears. An often exhausted working single mother, I
how people will remember me.”would choose one special night. After I had put the
We know he has a voice the likes of which we willboys to bed, I would turn on the Christmas tree lights.
not hear again in our lifetimes, so what, really can theNo dishes, no laundry that night. I would slip the
critics tell us? But with typical garbo, Pavarotti says,Christmas video into the VCR, climb into my recliner in
“People have a right to criticize. If they boo mefront of the big screen TV with slippers and hot toddy,
because I sing bad, they will do it.”and the tears would start streaming down my face.
However, it is the voices of we the people that speakGrazie, mille, Luciano Pavarotti. Please get well soon.
what he has meant to us: