A te, O cara
Sep 13th, 2009 by oldfogey
For the last twenty years of his life, the years of his superstardom, it became difficult to see much beyond the the rather grotesque, larger than life notoriety of Luciano Pavarotti. ‘Nessun Dorma’ fixed his fame in the wider public’s mind. It became hard to do justice to his real talent. His gargantuan size made him seem ridiculous. Opera fans began to disdain him in direct proportion to the growth of his world wide fame.
Pavarotti, for me, was simply the greatest tenor voice of the twentieth century. Others may have had greater dramatic talent - Jon Vickers, Placido Domingo to name two. But few, I think, had Pavarotti’s delicacy, and none his voice.
I’m not sure that it was in the big arias of Verdi or Puccini - ‘Nessun Dorma’ the most widely associated with him - suited him naturally - though his ‘Che gelida manina’ would rightly bring the house down. He was at his best, in my view, in the gentler, more reflective and wistful music of Bellini and Donizetti - the bel canto repertoire in vogue before Verdi’s dramatic revolution.
Here he is singing ‘A te, O cara’ - ‘You, beloved’ - from Bellini’s ‘I Puritani’. Nicolai Ghiaurov and Giancario Luccardi join in, with La Stupenda - Joan Sutherland - mooning about up top.
At his best.
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