Word: pavarotti
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America is currently busy boasting two operatic institutions: The Metropolitan Opera and Luciano Pavarotti. The former recently displayed its wares up in Boston at the Hynes Cattleyard, euphemistically known as an "auditorium" and blasphemously used as an opera house. The latter has just fattened his already ample public reputation--while his belly shrinks on a rigid diet--with the television broadcast of "Boheme" brought to us straight from the artistic stage of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. Now that the country is high on an opera binge (where else in the world can a prima donna double...
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...
...role of Manrico that Italian Tenor Luciano Pavarotti presided over the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's 92nd season in New York last week. Weighing in at well over 300 Ibs., his swordsmanship lightheartedly heavy handed, Pavarotti did little visually to make a believable character of Manrico. Vocally it was another matter. This was the kind of elegant, radiant singing that has made Pavarotti the most exciting lyric tenor in all opera. For Pavarotti and opera fans alike, Manrico was a major turning point in a notable career. It was the first time at the Met that Pavarotti...
...Pavarotti had some distinguished company. In the pit was Gianandrea Gavazzeni, 67, whose 50 years at Milan's La Scala include associations with Toscanini, Mascagni and Giordano. Gavazzeni led a performance that was full of controlled excitement; at the same time, he was consistently thoughtful of his singers. His support of Veteran Soprano Renata Scot to (Leonora), who sang the precarious D 'amor sull 'ali rosee in Act IV with extreme caution, was a memorable lesson in podium gallantry...
...Azucena was Shirley Verrett, who, like Pavarotti, is at a career turning point.A Met regular for eight years, she is basically a mezzo with an unusually high, extended range. Lately, she has been trying to move into the repertory of the dramatic soprano. The results have been only partially successful, largely because in moving higher her voice takes on an icy whiteness of tone. Returning to the mezzo range of Azucena, however, Verrett sang with overwhelming fire and urgency. One would hate to see a woman as lovely as Verrett consigned forever to play a hag like Azucena, but hers...