Arrivederci Luciano

 

 

I saw Luciano Pavarotti once, at my beloved Hollywood Bowl.  It was not long after he had joined Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras on tour as one of the "Three Tenors". The night I saw him was a charity event, and he was solo. "The instrument" as opera singers call it, his voice, it was said, was no longer reaching the heights it once had, but it was and remained magnificent enough for me. He was my age's Caruso and he could do no wrong. 

I hadn't thought much about him in recent years. I was surprised that he had sung my favorite and his most well known aria Nessun Dorma, from Puccini's Turandot, at the February 2006 opening of the Olympics in Torino. It would be his last public performance.  I missed it and did not remember having missed it. It was no surprise, when I think about it, how sad I was upon hearing of his death this week. Though I had never met the man, one key part of him had been among those cultural things that formed the tapestry of my life. No, it was more, part of my emotional tapestry.That one part of him felt so whole as to almost be a knowing, or maybe, as well, a regret that I had taken the presence of his talent for granted, as if it would always be here. I don't think I am unique in this. Maybe that is why some 50,000,people showed up to his funeral in Modena, Italy, where he was born. I wouldn't be surprised if he were baptized in the same church in which he was eulogized and given final earthly farewell.

I love certain arias but I cannot say that I am an opera fan. Still, Pavarotti's passionate version of Puccini's Nessun Dorma, has never failed to bring me to tears. It did tonight, as always, as finally I watched him sing it at the Olympics, courtesy of YouTube. I think he was sick then, and yet, what a wonder that the instrument was in full bloom.

There is something cosmic about the last words of the aria, "At dawn, I will win!" I  think now of Pavarotti in the dawn of his new life, a tenor in Heaven. There can never be too much singing in heaven and Pavarotti will be a lovely addition.