Purest Pavarotti

Purest Pavarotti

Daily Comfort Zone

norman lebrecht

October 03, 2021

Because he could.

Even with a terrible TV piano.

 

Comments

  • caranome says:

    The problem is that after hearing this, hearing everyone else (tenors) singing today is a disappoinment.

  • guest says:

    Voice like that comes one in the centuries. None has surpassed him, so far.

  • MacroV says:

    Pavarotti before about age 50 (or let’s say pre-“Yes, Giorgio”) is magical, before he became a caricature of himself.

    • TishaDoll says:

      Pavarotti’s voice was almost intact until April 1996’s Andrea Chenier with Millo then he caught pneumonia afterwards and he never completely regained his breath control. His voice never became a caricature. Wonderful man.

  • Novagerio says:

    Here’s a more dramatic version:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp4yg0c7Jso

  • MusicBear88 says:

    Not to mention how dead most television studios are acoustically and he sings it like he was at La Scala anyway.

  • M2N2K says:

    In this video he is almost screaming rather than singing. A bit later in his career he became for a short while somewhat more musical than here, though the timbre of his voice always remained quite plain and generic. For example, Domingo in his tenorial prime was more dramatic and expressive, and Kaufmann until about six years ago sounded richer and with far more colorful shadings in his voice.

  • Bloom says:

    No one has equalled yet the intense communicativeness of Pavarotti’s voice. Its warm humanity that tugs at the heart.

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    He’s so very much missed. I remember when I first heard about Pavarotti; it was in the late 1970s and I remember catching an interview with him on TV (Michael Parkinson?). I remember thinking ‘this great big bear of a man, hugely overweight, and so incredibly charismatic”!!

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    Too much pedal, but wonderful singing.

  • Gary Freer says:

    How can you compare Pavarotti with other tenors who sang different repertoire? He was a great bel canto singer most at home in Rossini/ Bellini / Donizetti. I never heard him sing an Evangelist in the Bach Passions nor anything in the lieder repertoire. Unlike Domingo he never sang Heldentenor roles in Wagner. How does he rank against singers such as Peter Schreier and Anthony Rolfe Johnson? Apples and oranges. There is no ‘greatest tenor’ , just great tenors. Cherish them all.

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