I find it quite difficult to write this. I generally find it difficult to write a tribute when someone dies. I find it a tad irksome when a significant passing brings out a flood of words motivated more by the need to mark a rite of passage and indulge a personal if often vicarious grief than out of genuine feeling.
I can't say I was ever a fan of Pavarotti, but as in the case of someone else, whose recent death I wrongly omitted to mark - Anthony Wilson - how can I remain untouched by his death when his life had brought me such joy.
And how can I say I am not a fan of someone who sings like this - I was about to change 'sings' to 'sang' but this beauty will live on forever
His death was not unexpected, it seemed a surprise that he survived pancreatic cancer so long, and then the final demise was rapid - which, I hope is a good thing. I was surprised at the wide spread of the media coverage on a day which, in the UK at least was not exactly a slow news day*. Not just the "Broadsheet" newspapers and Radios 3 and 4, but BBC News 24 and Sky, the red-tops and the purple-tops. And although I consider myself a careful student and an informed predictor of the media, this took me by surprise.
And in writing tributes and obituaries it is tempting to use superlative adjectives that are unevidenced, a result of emotion rather than fact-checking, especially in the downmarket newspapers.
What is absolutely without question that for millions, billions, of people who are not fans of opera or of classical music, Luciano Pavarotti was the face and epitome of opera. Other than that massive concert in the pouring rain in Hyde Park, I have never heard him live; if I had been inclined to, I would never have heard him in the vocal condition that made his name. I have a couple of DVDs with him in them, but I find them nearly unwatchable. I have relatively few of his recordings, and no complete operas - in every case there always seems to be a better alternative, and not just the obvious ones like Ballo and Tosca - I feel no pressing need to get Pav in Fille du Regiment on CD now that I have JDF on DVD.
I was startled to read in one of the tributes today that he never performed Calaf live on stage. I really find this to be extraordinary, but perhaps, in a sense, entirely typical of the contradictions of the artist. I think I would have been a bigger fan if he had focused more on the Bellini/Donizetti/lyric Verdi in which he excelled. But the number of roles he actually performed or even recorded is astonishingly low.
And, to be honest, it wasn't really for his opera performances that he became so universally famous, but for his role as a pop artist. I don't think he was ever a great musician, but undoubtedly a great singer with an innate musicality. I know a lot of people of my sort of age got into opera as a result of "The Three Tenors". I didn't. My mother and I sat down to watch it on the TV following her (day late) birthday tea and England's third place play-off match in Italia 90, with my brother breezing in and out as he got ready for a party and feigning utter boredom as is the wont of fifteen year olds...We thought we would be in a vanishingly small minority of people who would be watching it (we both had our favourite singers performing, neither of them was Pavarotti). We were, of course, wrong.
There are people who are hugely critical of The Three Tenors, as a trademarked entity and as individuals, and blame them squarely for the ghastly manifestation of plastic talentless plastic popera singers. And, I suppose, the emergence and inexplicable popularity of the likes of Bocelli, Jenkins, Watson, Potts and so on is the perfect proof of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Each of the Three Tenors had made their very great reputations, in different ways, through years and years of hard work and critical acclaim from experienced audiences in many different arduous roles in the world's top opera houses. I believe, because I have seen the evidence, that such performances did introduce many people to opera. The evidence that these artificial stars, reliant always on the magic of the microphone and the mixing desk, have done so is absent. Jimmy commented that he had caught a clip of the 3Ts on the news "they look like they're having fun!" he exclaimed, almost as he didn't think that was allowed!
There are an enormous number of obituaries, tributes, memories and reflections all over the internet, in every language I can read and, no doubt, many more besides, far far too many to include here, although the untiring stalwarts over at the 3Ts Yahoo Group are doing a splendid job.
But here are a few I have found worth reading, in no order other than left to right across the tabs in my browser...
Luciano Pavarotti: Remembrances
Luciano Pavarotti: Heirs to his popularity crown
Opera's greatest star brought classical music to the masses
Luciano Pavarotti Is Dead at 71
World pays tribute to Pavarotti, singer and man
Opera World Loses a Leading Ambassador
Placido Domingo pays tribute to Pavarotti, a friend and rival
Tenors lead tributes to Luciano Pavarotti
A really brilliant video tribute from TelegraphTV, surprisingly an ITN production, with insightful intelligent - definitive - comment from Sarah Crompton their Arts editor; the only fault being the absence of a deep links, but at least with an easily searchable sidebar. I swear, I drafted this blogpost before I watched this clip.
Its not over, because the fat guy still sings
Luciano Pavarotti: Obituary "At the age of 12 Luciano contracted tetanus. He was in a coma for two weeks, and was twice given the last rites" - well, I'd never read that before, but, together with the genuine privations that came as Italy faced defeat in the war, really puts Paul Potts's pathetic sob stories into context.
Tributes pour in for Luciano Pavarotti
Pavarotti: Opera great with a popular touch
'It was all about the voice'
*Russian jets being intercepted by the RAF; a report published on the damaging effects of food addictives; the report into Foot and Mouth being leaked; Madeline McCann's mother being interviewed by Portuguese Police; the funeral of 11 year old murder victim Rhys Jones broadcast live from Liverpool Cathedral; the England football, rugby and cricket teams gearing up for crucial matches on Saturday.
