Word: tenore
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...other tenor in modern times has hit the opera world with such seismic force. At 6 ft. and nearly 300 lbs., "Big P," as Soprano Joan Sutherland calls him, is more than lifesize, as is everything about him?ins clarion high Cs, his fees of $8,000 per night for an opera and $20,000 for a recital, his Rabelaisian zest for food and fun. "He is not primo tenore, " says San Francisco Opera General Director Kurt Herbert Adler. "He is primissimo tenore...
Little wonder, then, that San Francisco treated Pavarotti as the top attraction in La Gioconda, although the tenor role is not exactly the lead. Local hostesses vied for his exuberant presence at their parties. A dealer lent him a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud for ins seven-week stay. Between socializing and vocalizing, Pavarotti jetted to Los Angeles for one of his periodic jousts with Johnny Carson on the Tonight show. When he had free time, he took to the tennis court. A surprisingly graceful Gargantua, he is quick on his feet and gets about as much English on the tennis...
After holding court in his dressing room, Pavarotti pressed into the crowded corridor followed by the members of a documentary-film crew, one of whom held a white umbrella aloft to diffuse a floodlight. As the tenor made ins progress toward the exit under the effulgent parasol, bestowing more blessings and kisses, breaking into nimble dance steps and mugging for the camera, he looked like a cross between an Oriental potentate and the late Zero Mostel. Before heading off in his Rolls-Royce, he rated his performance that night: "8.5 on a scale of ten, and, remember, I never give...
...effective comedian. His chief asset, especially in romantic roles, is his height, which offsets his distinctly un-dashing waistline. "I never look at how wide they are, but how tall," says Soprano Beverly Sills. "It is a relief to be able to put your head on a tenor's shoulder." What carries Pavarotti through is his patent sincerity and gut-level identification with his characters. "I can see myself as Rodolfo in Bohème," he says. "Rodolfo is a figure of genuine emotion. This is the real thing, so real that when Mimi enters I feel I want to take...
...kind of professional singing is a dicey venture, requiring as it does that the performer stake his prosperity, career and identity on barely more than an inch of exquisitely fragile larynx. But the pressure on tenors is perhaps the most harrowing of all. The reason is that the tenor voice is an unnatural one, especially in the rarefied range above the staff?the four or five notes from G to high C or D. For a male singer to reach such heights while retaining all the power and virility of his lower range?and, preferably, subordinating the sheer physical feat...