Word: pavarottie
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...diet. He is currently forbidden to drink wine, and his most opulent meal is zuchini, rice and 250 grams (about half a pound) of meat or fish cooked with a few drops of oil. More tragic than any scene he plays onstage is the sight of a dieting Pavarotti at a dinner party, surrounded by gorging guests as he disconsolately sips soda water or diet cola...
Such moments of depression are rare, but they are an occupational hazard. Feasting or dieting, fussed over or not, a barnstorming opera singer spends long hours of isolation in hotels, studying, resting (Pavarotti sleeps ten to twelve hours before a performance) or simply killing time. Pavarotti's wife Adua joins him on tour for a few weeks each year, and friends consider her spirited, sensible ministrations a tremendous boost for him. Says one of them: "At least she doesn't stand in the wings with holy water like the wives of some Italian tenors." But Pavarotti manages only a handful...
...Modena (pop. 180,000), an industrial city noted for its hardworking, stubborn citizenry, its good food and its dedication to opera, that Pavarotti was born nearly 44 years ago. He remembers himself as a lively, gossipy scamp, always in trouble. At school his energies went into sports; soccer became a passion. At home he chimed in with the likes of Gigli, Tito Scinpa, Bjoerling and Di Stefano on the records collected by his father, a baker and gifted amateur tenor. He recalls: "In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate...
...local chorus to an international music festival in Llangollen, Wales, where?to their delirious amazement ?they won first prize. Encouraged by Adua, whom he had met and become engaged to during teacher training, Luciano decided to give singing a try. (Another Modena youngster, a childhood friend of Pavarotti's, had already made the same decision: Soprano Mirella Freni...
...when he was 27, he got a job as stand-by for Giuseppe di Stefano in a Covent Garden production of La Bohème and sang several performances. Conductor Richard Bonynge heard him and was "bowled over." Eventually, Pavarotti found himself singing with Bonynge's wife, Joan Sutherland, in a Miami production of Lucia di Lammermoor. To Sutherland's skeptical eye, this strapping unknown looked like "a big schoolboy." But to her ear? "Well, it was absolutely phenomenal ? the fabulous resonance, the shading, such range, such security." The Bonynges signed him up for a 14-week tour of Australia...