Word: carusos
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...squabbling, she was not at her best vocally or dramatically. Pavarotti came through splendidly. Playing a 17th century nobleman who is enmeshed in a conflict with the Venetian Inquisition, he made bold entrances in full cry. His spacious second-act aria, Cielo e mar, which used to serve Caruso well, was traced in long, limpid lines that glowed with emotion. ins voice soared out of the big ensembles, seeming to carry the chorus into the air with him. At the curtain, Scotto took a single bow, then retired to her dressing room. Pavarotti came out with the other principals time...
...most ambitious number was Tosti's limpid Ideale. In the heavenly cantoria, one could picture Beniamino Gigli and Tito Schipa nodding paternally, John McCormack consulting the universal genealogy to see if Pavarotti has any Irish blood. He has been compared with these tenors and many more, including Caruso. None is quite right. Pavarotti is himself: a great tenor whose technique is traditional, but whose direct, unsentimental, occasionally tough approach to music makes him very much a modern singer . -Martha Duffy
...From Caruso to Corelli, the Italian tenor has always been and remains music's only matinee idol. The tenors have preserved a paradoxical mystique, combining refined and vertiginous high C's on stage with crude pidgin English and fiery Latin lust off. In most respects, Pavarotti lives out this mystique, regularly publicizing his voracious sexual and insatiable culinary appetites. But when it comes to comparisons with forebears where it really counts, Pavarotti's mystique loses potency. On the subject of singing, mere mention of Pavarotti's name in the same breath as that of the illustrious Caruso and Gigli marks...
...even within his own specialty, of lyric singing, Pavarotti cannot match many of hs predecessors. For all its ease, the voice simply does not have the sheer beauty of a Gigli or a Caruso or a Tagliavini. These were "golden voices"; the sound was not light and thin, but light and full, with richness and texture to the sounds they produced; they soothed and caressed your ears. Pavarotti's voice is pretty, but not as startlingly beautiful...
...high notes do not a tenor make. At least they shouldn't even though high C's account for Mr. Pavarotti's sudden fame. Caruso was a B-flat tenor, as were, Pertile, and Schipa. High C's were simply out of their performing range. And some past greats, like Martinelli and Pertile not only lacked good high notes but lacked beautiful voices altogether. They made their reputations on vocal excitement and elegance of interpretation. Today most tenors sing with plodding monotony; no variety of color, no subtlety of phrasing, no dramatic imagination. Mr. Pavarotti uses his voice with...