MENTION of Luciano Pavarotti, the tubby tenor who will shortly grace our shores, always puts me in mind of a cummerbund.
I can never picture the Sir Cumference of opera without this item of clothing, so appropriate to his calling, his outsize personality, and his noble girth. The association of ideas is irresistible. That man’s waist demands to be encompassed by a broad red sash. Nothing else will do.
On Wednesday evening, Pavarotti gives a concert at the D’Avila moat in Nicosia, together with the soprano Simona Todaro and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation. The appearance is part of a world tour of concert performances prior to his final retirement on his 70th birthday in October next year. It thus marks one of the last opportunities for an unmediated, authentic encounter with a historic operatic voice, and should be seized by all who value the real musical thing, as opposed to its recorded simulacrum.
Pavarotti announced his retirement from staged opera earlier this year, bowing out after appearing in Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. He cited physical frailty as the reason: “I should be lighter and able to run on the stage.”
His decision reflected a sad but wise recognition of realities. Time has taken its toll of the energetic singer who in the late 1960s achieved renown for his panache in dispatching the nine high Cs in Donizetti’s Fille du Régiment. His final performances in Tosca at the Met in March drew some unflattering reviews of his vocal equipment. And as the 68-year-old singing legend admits, he is no longer up to the purely physical demands of the Italian repertoire, whose roles for leading tenor characteristically require much in the way of sword-fighting and general swash and buckle.
Yet even during his vocal prime, Pavarotti’s physical appearance hindered that willing suspension of disbelief necessary for full engagement with an operatic fiction. Could this portly chap really be Rodolfo, the starved, garret-dwelling poet of La Bohème? Could he really be the athletic Moorish warrior of Otello? These are two of Pavarotti’s most famous roles, which he has sung gloriously. But listening to his CD sets of these operas, I find that for complete enjoyment I must edit out my mental image of the cummerbunded one and concentrate solely on the magnificent voice.
Pavarotti achieved global stardom as one of the Three Tenors, who made their debut in Rome during the 1990 World Cup finals. Of the trio, it is safe to say that he and Plácido Domingo are the true heavyweights (ahem). José Carreras has a fine voice, and one can only admire his brave and successful struggle against serious illness (he overcame leukaemia to resume his singing career). But it is Pavarotti and Domingo who have commanded the world’s opera houses and captured the public imagination.
How does Pavarotti fare in comparison to his great singing partner and rival? Domingo is arguably the more serious musician, having in recent years tried his hand at conducting, unlike Pavarotti. Domingo certainly has the greater range of role and repertoire, taking on several of Wagner’s music-dramas, whose demands – musically, intellectually, dramatically and vocally – simply dwarf those of Italian opera, to which Pavarotti has confined himself. But as for sheer quality of voice, it is impossible to say that one is superior to the other. The voices are different in timbre and weight – Pavarotti’s is perhaps lighter and brighter than Domingo’s – but equally beautiful, heroic and thrilling. And Pavarotti doesn’t have Domingo’s irritating archness of eyebrow – one to rival Roger Moore’s in his 007 heyday.
Purists deplore the Three Tenors as a populist and money-grubbing venture. It is hard to have patience with such complaints. The Three Tenors have brought good music and pleasure to many millions. And Pavarotti’s rendition of Nessun Dorma, which became the theme tune for British TV’s coverage of the 1990 World Cup, performed the useful public service of dinning the glories of Puccini into many a quarter-inch-cropped English pate that would otherwise have resounded internally to ditties of an altogether more brute and minatory nature.
The purists have also wrinkled their noses at the “Pavarotti and Friends” concerts which the tenor has hosted at his hometown of Modena since 1992. These charity events, intended to raise funds for child victims of war, have seen Pavarotti perform with numerous pop singers, including Stevie Wonder, the Spice Girls, George Michael, Celine Dion, and U2.
The charitable purpose of these concerts preserves them from serious objection, but they can give rise to hilarious incongruities. I recall seeing on TV a few years ago a clip from the great man’s appearance with U2 vocalist Bono. The latter sang first, shuffling around in his trademark wraparound tinted goggles, crouched over the mike, his voice the standard faux-transatlantic nasal whine of pop.
Then it was Pavarotti’s turn. He opened his mouth and the whole auditorium filled effortlessly with a ringing, pitch-perfect, full-bodied, melodious tenor. The sound was simply majestic. One squirmed with embarrassment for the grinning creature at Pavarotti’s side, whose vocal inadequacies had just been made annihilatingly clear. It was as if a blowtorch had been switched on next to a safety match. (Not all rock–opera collaborations are so unequal. Freddie Mercury duetted on the single Barcelona with Victoria De los Angeles, as fine a soprano as Pavarotti is a tenor. The late Queen front man by no means disgraced himself. But then, unlike Bono, he could aspire to a quasi-operatic falsetto and vocal flamboyance. In basic terms, he was simply a better singer than the Irish rocker.)
Just a week ago, Sir Elton John, who has sung with Pavarotti, made the Nicosia welkin ring from the very same D’Avila moat venue at which the Italian legend will appear on Wednesday. It would be interesting to compare attendances at the two concerts. There can be no doubt as to who has the finer voice, or who will be offering the more substantial musical fare. It would be a pity to miss Pavarotti’s appearance. We shall not see his like again.
Luciano Pavarotti, June 9, 9pm. D’Avila Moat, Nicosia. Tickets at £35, £40, £50, £60, £65, £70, and £75. Tickets available from the Limassol Patticheion Municipal Theatre (25-343341), the Nicosia Municipal Theatre (22-664028), and the Larnaca Municipal Theatre (24-665795). For more information call 25-372855.
