Luciano Pavarotti (12 October 1935 – 6 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.
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".
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".