Word: pavarottie
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...Metropolitan's Gildo Di Nunzio is on hand to help Pavarotti learn his new role in La Gioconda. Beyond the big French doors the sea glistens invitingly, and the opera houses of the world seem far away. Yes, work must be done; but first, perhaps, a spin in the cabin cruiser? A workman arrives to fix the pool; he must be invited in for a glass of wine. The three Pavarotti daughters wander through, or his wife Adua settles in a corner; an interlude of familial chatting and joking is irresistible...
...even Pavarotti's relaxation has a carnival air. Privacy for him means being surrounded by a mere dozen or so people. The entrance to his property has a closed-circuit TV camera for screening visitors, yet the gate is rarely shut, except at night, because nobody wants to be bothered with all that opening and closing. Musicians like Conductor Claudio Abbado, in-laws, the curator of Pesaro's Rossini Museum, journalists, the local -the guests constantly come...
...Pavarotti's method of appeasing Di Nunzio's sense of duty is to whistle a phrase, to show that he is at least thinking about music. Even while cavorting in the pool, Pavarotti whistles. Finally they get to the keyboard for some detailed drilling on the score. But soon a pungent aroma drifts in from the kitchen where Anna, the cook, is at work. "The day is a crescendo reaching its climax at lunch," says Di Nunzio. "Lunch is very important. Luciano will be singing a phrase, and abruptly he gets up, still singing, and walks away. Luciano...
Later, on the terrace near a stone fountain he designed himself, Pavarotti presides boisterously over a table that rarely has fewer than 14 or 16 guests around it. Over plates of polenta (cornmeal porridge), sausage and pork in a thick gravy, washed down with Lambrusco, the talk moves from local politics to musical gossip: the burglary of Herbert von Karajan's Saint-Tropez villa, or the scheduling problems caused by the love affair of two internationally known singers...
...afternoon, Pavarotti attacks his easel. Three years ago, a fan in Chicago gave him a set of oil paints after seeing him portray the artist Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca. He taught himself to paint large, naif landscapes in blazing colors, most of them based on postcard photos of places he has never seen...