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Audience members at the Metropolitan Opera looked at one another in amazement. Did we just hear what we thought we heard? On-stage, the strapping young Italian tenor singing opposite Joan Sutherland in The Daughter of the Regiment had just trumpeted a ringing high C, then another, and another. He was singing an aria that most tenors transpose down a step, in order to get by on B-flats (tough enough). But this fellow tossed off every high C in the aria with astonishing ease and brilliance—nine in all. The effect was electrifying. Within a day the Met box office was besieged, and Manhattan’s media mills swung into action.
That was in 1972. The tenor was Luciano Pavarotti. For a decade he had been building an international operatic reputation as a real comer. Now, with those high C’s at the Met, he announced that he had fully arrived. Virtually from that moment until he died this week of pancreatic cancer at 71, he reigned in the public mind as the prime tenor of his day.
The extravagance of the label was just right. In both his music and his personality, Pavarotti’s exuberance was very clear. His voice—“one of those freaks of nature that comes very rarely in a hundred years,” according to conductor Richard Bonynge—had a clear, penetrating timbre, alive with the resonance known to singers. At the same time it radiated a gorgeously warm romantic sheen. He produced it with an unforced, open-throated quality that Italians call lasciarsi andare—letting it pour forth.
He also poured forth showmanship. A six-footer who weighed 300 pounds or more for much of his life, he had a Rabelaisian appetite for food and fun. Offstage he clowned on TV talk shows, appeared in commercials and movies, and generated nonstop tabloid copy. Reports of his dietary struggles and weight fluctuations circulated like a runaway Dow Jones average: up 25, down 80, up 60. He was a household name to millions of people who had never seen the inside of an opera house.
On-stage he connected viscerally with audiences. Taking his bows, he spread wide his enormous stevedore arms in a gesture of embrace, often flaunting a trademark white handkerchief that was approximately the size of Rhode Island. As applause cascaded over him, he visibly inhaled it like life-giving oxygen, which it was to him. “I am enthusiastic of the job I do and enthusiastic of life,” he once said. “The pleasure of the profession is the human warmth around me, the public out there.”
In the 1980s and ‘90s the showmanship tended to take over. At a time when Pavarotti was canceling more and more performances at the world’s opera houses, he turned to solo concerts in such big venues as sports arenas, convention centers, even a circus tent. He issued a slew of commercial recordings, racking up sales that gave pop stars like Elton John a run for their money. He barnstormed with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras as “The Three Tenors,” favoring spectacular settings like the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, which in turn yielded still more recordings and TV specials. “I want to be famous everywhere,” he said, and he was.
Pavarotti was a baker’s son from the small Italian city of Modena, who had briefly taught elementary school and sold insurance while pursuing his vocal studies. As late as the 1970s Pavarotti liked to say he was still “a country boy,” and he played up his modest roots by spending his summers on home turf, swimming, riding horses and expertly whipping up pasta feasts. But his family home was now a 17th century mansion on 12 acres, and there was no disguising his status as an immensely wealthy international superstar. Eventually his prolonged globetrotting absences took a toll on family life. In 1996 he separated from the Modena girl he had married 35 years before, Adua Veroni, to be with his secretary, Nicoletta Mantovani, whom he married in 2003.
Pavarotti was unquestionably the most celebrated and most exciting tenor in the second half of the 20th century. Was he also the best? Here a definition of terms is in order. Some tenors ranged more widely through the repertory. Pavarotti concentrated on the classic lyric roles in such works as La Boheme, La Traviata and Madame Butterfly, and in later decades, when his voice turned darker, added more forceful roles like those in Tosca and Un Ballo in Maschera; but he rarely ventured into ruggedly dramatic territory, and almost never sang in any language but Italian.
Still other tenors displayed more refinement and style, and brought a richer cultural or intellectual background to their roles. A case in point: Domingo, the other dominant tenor of the era, a more consistent, versatile and rounded singer than Pavarotti and a far more affecting actor.
Yet no one matched Pavarotti at his best for sheer, prodigal outpouring of vocal beauty. In this sense Pavarotti the celebrity and Pavarotti the artist were one. The same simplicity, verve and generosity of spirit that made him a walking media event shone through his resplendent voice. His singing expressed the identical quality that it inspired in listeners around the world: an instinctive joy in the performance itself.
大都会歌剧院的观众相互惊奇地看着对方。我们刚才听到的是我们想要听的歌声吗？舞台上，这位在《上校的女儿》中对着琼·萨瑟兰欢唱的身材伟岸的年轻意大利高音歌唱家已高声唱出了一个响亮的高音C，然后又一个，接着另一个。他正在唱绝大多数男高音变低一个音调，以便通过（足够粗放的）B调才能唱出的唱段。但这位歌唱家却以令人吃惊的悠闲而潇洒的姿态轻而易举的一口气唱出了所有的高音C——总共唱出了9个高音C。这种效应是令人吃惊的。在一天之内大都会歌剧院售票处人满为患，曼哈顿岛上的媒体也迅速行动起来了。
这件事发生在1972年。这位男高音歌唱家是卢奇阿诺·帕瓦罗蒂。作为一名真正的后来居上者，10年来他一直在树立一种国际歌剧名声。现在他在大都会歌剧院中唱出了这些高音C，他宣布他完全成功了。事实上就从那一刻开始直到他本周71岁因患胰腺癌去世，他一直是公众脑海中他这个时代的第一男高音。
再多的标榜也不过份。无论在他的音乐还是人格中，帕瓦罗蒂的生气勃勃是非常明显的。他的声音——在音乐指挥家理查德·波宁吉看来是“100年来很少出现的天籁之声之一”——具有清晰响亮的音质，对于歌唱家来说它一直到今天还回响在耳边。同时它还放射出一种华美温暖浪漫的光彩。他用自然、开阔的嗓音发出了意大利人称之为连绵不断的高音C。
他还展露出自己的表演能力。他身高6英尺，在其一生中大部分时间都重达300磅或更多，他对食物和玩笑有着拉伯雷式的爱好。离开舞台后他在电视现场访谈节目中扮演小丑，出现在商业广告和电影中，并总是能够产生连续的轰动效应。关于他节食方面的努力和体重的变化，犹如失控的道琼斯工业平均指数一样在波动：增加25磅、下降80磅，然后再上升60磅。虽然数百万人并没有在歌剧院中亲自看他演出，但他却成为家喻户晓的名人。
在舞台上他的心与观众悉悉相通。当他鞠躬时，他以拥抱姿势舒展着他那巨大如搬运工人一样的手臂，经常挥动着一个标志性的罗得岛大小的白色手帕。当掌声涌来时，他明显地将它吸入，如同呼吸送给他的提神氧气。“我对自己的工作和生活充满热情，”他曾经这样说道。“我周围的人们和演出时的观众的热情为我带来了职业乐趣。”
在20世纪80年代和90年代，这种演出技巧逐渐地被大众接受。曾经有一段时间帕瓦罗蒂越来越多地取消了在全世界歌剧院中进行的演出，他转向了体育场、会议中心甚至是在马戏团帐篷中举行独唱音乐会。他发行了大量的商业唱片，销量很大，使像埃尔顿·约翰这样的流行歌星，只可去连续演出赚钱。他与普拉西多·多明戈和乔塞·卡雷拉斯一起作为“世界三大男高音”进行巡回演出，喜爱像《罗马的卡拉卡拉浴场》这样壮观音乐剧的演出，由此而出了更多唱片和电视专题片。“我想在全世界出名，”他说，而他做到了。
帕瓦罗蒂是一名面包师的儿子，出生于意大利小城摩德纳，他当过一段时间的小学老师，在进行声乐学习的同时还卖过保险。直到20世纪70年代帕瓦罗蒂还喜欢说他仍然是一名“乡村男孩”，夏天他在故乡的赛马场上用端庄的根音进行演出、游泳、骑马，并熟练地制作意大利面食。但当时他的家是一个修建在10英亩土地上的17世纪庄园，并没有把他的地位假装成一个非常富有的国际巨星。最后他长期游走于世界而不在家中使他的家庭生活宣告结束。1996年他与35年前结婚的摩德纳姑娘艾杜亚·维罗尼分手，与他的秘书妮克莱塔·曼托瓦尼生活在一起，他们于2003年结婚。
毫无疑问帕瓦罗蒂是20世纪下半叶最著名和最激动人心的男高音歌唱家。他还是最出色的歌唱家吗？在这里是合适的。一些男高音所演唱的剧目范围更广。而帕瓦罗蒂则把精力集中在了像《荡妇》、《茶花女》和《蝴蝶夫人》这样的经典抒情角色上，并在随后的几十年中，当他的声音变得更深沉后，另外又在《托斯卡》和《假面舞会》中扮演了更多有说服力的角色；但他很少冒险进入到粗俗戏剧领域中，并几乎除意大利语外从来不使用外语进行演唱。
但其他男高音歌唱家展示了更多精巧和风格，并把更丰富的文化和知识背景带到他们的角色中去。一个恰当的例子：与帕瓦罗蒂相比，同时代的另一位重要男高音歌唱家多明戈是一个更加始终如一、多才多艺和全面的歌唱家，也是一个更具影响的演员。
然而无人能够与帕瓦罗蒂处于最佳状态时透明、慷慨倾泄而出的美丽歌声相媲美。在这意义上来说作为名人的帕瓦罗蒂和作为艺术家的帕瓦罗蒂是统一的。同样的直率、热情和慷慨精神使得他成为一个活生生的媒体事件，并使他的华丽歌声一直光彩夺目。他的歌唱表达出同样的品质，它激励着全世界的听众：这是表演本身的快乐。★
That was in 1972. The tenor was Luciano Pavarotti. For a decade he had been building an international operatic reputation as a real comer. Now, with those high C’s at the Met, he announced that he had fully arrived. Virtually from that moment until he died this week of pancreatic cancer at 71, he reigned in the public mind as the prime tenor of his day.
The extravagance of the label was just right. In both his music and his personality, Pavarotti’s exuberance was very clear. His voice—“one of those freaks of nature that comes very rarely in a hundred years,” according to conductor Richard Bonynge—had a clear, penetrating timbre, alive with the resonance known to singers. At the same time it radiated a gorgeously warm romantic sheen. He produced it with an unforced, open-throated quality that Italians call lasciarsi andare—letting it pour forth.
He also poured forth showmanship. A six-footer who weighed 300 pounds or more for much of his life, he had a Rabelaisian appetite for food and fun. Offstage he clowned on TV talk shows, appeared in commercials and movies, and generated nonstop tabloid copy. Reports of his dietary struggles and weight fluctuations circulated like a runaway Dow Jones average: up 25, down 80, up 60. He was a household name to millions of people who had never seen the inside of an opera house.
On-stage he connected viscerally with audiences. Taking his bows, he spread wide his enormous stevedore arms in a gesture of embrace, often flaunting a trademark white handkerchief that was approximately the size of Rhode Island. As applause cascaded over him, he visibly inhaled it like life-giving oxygen, which it was to him. “I am enthusiastic of the job I do and enthusiastic of life,” he once said. “The pleasure of the profession is the human warmth around me, the public out there.”
In the 1980s and ‘90s the showmanship tended to take over. At a time when Pavarotti was canceling more and more performances at the world’s opera houses, he turned to solo concerts in such big venues as sports arenas, convention centers, even a circus tent. He issued a slew of commercial recordings, racking up sales that gave pop stars like Elton John a run for their money. He barnstormed with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras as “The Three Tenors,” favoring spectacular settings like the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, which in turn yielded still more recordings and TV specials. “I want to be famous everywhere,” he said, and he was.
Pavarotti was a baker’s son from the small Italian city of Modena, who had briefly taught elementary school and sold insurance while pursuing his vocal studies. As late as the 1970s Pavarotti liked to say he was still “a country boy,” and he played up his modest roots by spending his summers on home turf, swimming, riding horses and expertly whipping up pasta feasts. But his family home was now a 17th century mansion on 12 acres, and there was no disguising his status as an immensely wealthy international superstar. Eventually his prolonged globetrotting absences took a toll on family life. In 1996 he separated from the Modena girl he had married 35 years before, Adua Veroni, to be with his secretary, Nicoletta Mantovani, whom he married in 2003.
Pavarotti was unquestionably the most celebrated and most exciting tenor in the second half of the 20th century. Was he also the best? Here a definition of terms is in order. Some tenors ranged more widely through the repertory. Pavarotti concentrated on the classic lyric roles in such works as La Boheme, La Traviata and Madame Butterfly, and in later decades, when his voice turned darker, added more forceful roles like those in Tosca and Un Ballo in Maschera; but he rarely ventured into ruggedly dramatic territory, and almost never sang in any language but Italian.
Still other tenors displayed more refinement and style, and brought a richer cultural or intellectual background to their roles. A case in point: Domingo, the other dominant tenor of the era, a more consistent, versatile and rounded singer than Pavarotti and a far more affecting actor.
Yet no one matched Pavarotti at his best for sheer, prodigal outpouring of vocal beauty. In this sense Pavarotti the celebrity and Pavarotti the artist were one. The same simplicity, verve and generosity of spirit that made him a walking media event shone through his resplendent voice. His singing expressed the identical quality that it inspired in listeners around the world: an instinctive joy in the performance itself.
大都会歌剧院的观众相互惊奇地看着对方。我们刚才听到的是我们想要听的歌声吗？舞台上，这位在《上校的女儿》中对着琼·萨瑟兰欢唱的身材伟岸的年轻意大利高音歌唱家已高声唱出了一个响亮的高音C，然后又一个，接着另一个。他正在唱绝大多数男高音变低一个音调，以便通过（足够粗放的）B调才能唱出的唱段。但这位歌唱家却以令人吃惊的悠闲而潇洒的姿态轻而易举的一口气唱出了所有的高音C——总共唱出了9个高音C。这种效应是令人吃惊的。在一天之内大都会歌剧院售票处人满为患，曼哈顿岛上的媒体也迅速行动起来了。
这件事发生在1972年。这位男高音歌唱家是卢奇阿诺·帕瓦罗蒂。作为一名真正的后来居上者，10年来他一直在树立一种国际歌剧名声。现在他在大都会歌剧院中唱出了这些高音C，他宣布他完全成功了。事实上就从那一刻开始直到他本周71岁因患胰腺癌去世，他一直是公众脑海中他这个时代的第一男高音。
再多的标榜也不过份。无论在他的音乐还是人格中，帕瓦罗蒂的生气勃勃是非常明显的。他的声音——在音乐指挥家理查德·波宁吉看来是“100年来很少出现的天籁之声之一”——具有清晰响亮的音质，对于歌唱家来说它一直到今天还回响在耳边。同时它还放射出一种华美温暖浪漫的光彩。他用自然、开阔的嗓音发出了意大利人称之为连绵不断的高音C。
他还展露出自己的表演能力。他身高6英尺，在其一生中大部分时间都重达300磅或更多，他对食物和玩笑有着拉伯雷式的爱好。离开舞台后他在电视现场访谈节目中扮演小丑，出现在商业广告和电影中，并总是能够产生连续的轰动效应。关于他节食方面的努力和体重的变化，犹如失控的道琼斯工业平均指数一样在波动：增加25磅、下降80磅，然后再上升60磅。虽然数百万人并没有在歌剧院中亲自看他演出，但他却成为家喻户晓的名人。
在舞台上他的心与观众悉悉相通。当他鞠躬时，他以拥抱姿势舒展着他那巨大如搬运工人一样的手臂，经常挥动着一个标志性的罗得岛大小的白色手帕。当掌声涌来时，他明显地将它吸入，如同呼吸送给他的提神氧气。“我对自己的工作和生活充满热情，”他曾经这样说道。“我周围的人们和演出时的观众的热情为我带来了职业乐趣。”
在20世纪80年代和90年代，这种演出技巧逐渐地被大众接受。曾经有一段时间帕瓦罗蒂越来越多地取消了在全世界歌剧院中进行的演出，他转向了体育场、会议中心甚至是在马戏团帐篷中举行独唱音乐会。他发行了大量的商业唱片，销量很大，使像埃尔顿·约翰这样的流行歌星，只可去连续演出赚钱。他与普拉西多·多明戈和乔塞·卡雷拉斯一起作为“世界三大男高音”进行巡回演出，喜爱像《罗马的卡拉卡拉浴场》这样壮观音乐剧的演出，由此而出了更多唱片和电视专题片。“我想在全世界出名，”他说，而他做到了。
帕瓦罗蒂是一名面包师的儿子，出生于意大利小城摩德纳，他当过一段时间的小学老师，在进行声乐学习的同时还卖过保险。直到20世纪70年代帕瓦罗蒂还喜欢说他仍然是一名“乡村男孩”，夏天他在故乡的赛马场上用端庄的根音进行演出、游泳、骑马，并熟练地制作意大利面食。但当时他的家是一个修建在10英亩土地上的17世纪庄园，并没有把他的地位假装成一个非常富有的国际巨星。最后他长期游走于世界而不在家中使他的家庭生活宣告结束。1996年他与35年前结婚的摩德纳姑娘艾杜亚·维罗尼分手，与他的秘书妮克莱塔·曼托瓦尼生活在一起，他们于2003年结婚。
毫无疑问帕瓦罗蒂是20世纪下半叶最著名和最激动人心的男高音歌唱家。他还是最出色的歌唱家吗？在这里是合适的。一些男高音所演唱的剧目范围更广。而帕瓦罗蒂则把精力集中在了像《荡妇》、《茶花女》和《蝴蝶夫人》这样的经典抒情角色上，并在随后的几十年中，当他的声音变得更深沉后，另外又在《托斯卡》和《假面舞会》中扮演了更多有说服力的角色；但他很少冒险进入到粗俗戏剧领域中，并几乎除意大利语外从来不使用外语进行演唱。
但其他男高音歌唱家展示了更多精巧和风格，并把更丰富的文化和知识背景带到他们的角色中去。一个恰当的例子：与帕瓦罗蒂相比，同时代的另一位重要男高音歌唱家多明戈是一个更加始终如一、多才多艺和全面的歌唱家，也是一个更具影响的演员。
然而无人能够与帕瓦罗蒂处于最佳状态时透明、慷慨倾泄而出的美丽歌声相媲美。在这意义上来说作为名人的帕瓦罗蒂和作为艺术家的帕瓦罗蒂是统一的。同样的直率、热情和慷慨精神使得他成为一个活生生的媒体事件，并使他的华丽歌声一直光彩夺目。他的歌唱表达出同样的品质，它激励着全世界的听众：这是表演本身的快乐。★