Parmi veder le lagrime

[pallas_athena]

It's really not a good week for classical music. Luciano Pavarotti's just been operated on for pancreatic cancer. His outlook sounds optimistic, so let's hope for the best.

The recording of Verdi's Rigoletto with Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland and Sherrill Milnes was one of the first opera recordings I bought. It was a box of cassettes-- that's how long ago it was. It's an oldish recording, so the singers are in their prime, and Pavarotti's Duke is just amazing-- he sounds like liquid fire. Listening to that Rigoletto helped get me into opera.

From the Washington Post article:

"There are in effect two Pavarottis. One of them is a great artist -- an ineffably musical lyric tenor whose voice suggested all the sun and sweetness in the world. The other is an overblown media attraction who sang through heavy amplification at football stadiums, lip-synced to his own recordings in concert, lolled lazily through mundane pop songs and generally did as a little work as possible for some of the largest paychecks in the history of classical music. [...]

"Even well past his 60th birthday, he retained the most sheerly beautiful tenor voice since that of the late Jussi Bjoerling, who died in 1960. And on those occasions when Pavarotti throws himself wholeheartedly into a role -- knowing every note, thinking about the music, attending all the rehearsals, working closely and sympathetically with his colleagues, shepherding his resources for the long haul -- there is nobody else like him."

Sounds like they're writing his obituary already, doesn't it?