Cruel and Sad News-Our Greatest Tenor is Dead

These pages are not intended to be a general news source for what is going on in classical music, but the desperately cruel death of Luciano Pavarotti from a most implacable illness requires a comment from here.  Pavarotti was our greatest tenor, the closest thing to Bjoerling or Caruso in our time, with a similarly beautiful ache in his voice as well as staggering, sensational talent and musicality. 

Forget stuff like “King of the High C’s” and “He Brought Opera to the Masses” and “Three Tenors Star is Dead”. He means much, much more to opera, and even music, generally. 

Contrary to myth, he was a splendid actor (just look at his late-in-life Canio on the Met’s DVD) who profoundly understood the nature of the operatic roles he assumed. In playing the Duke of Mantua, Manrico, and Riccardo from Verdi, Rodolfo, Cavaradossi and Calaf from Puccini, he had few peers (from any era) and no superiors.   

I advise you to listen to classical radio today.  You’ll hear something beautiful, I promise you that.