Mitch Friedfeld:

>Have seen only a handful of messages come in since the death of Luciano
>Pavarotti, none of which have mentioned him.  Here is Jane Eaglen's
>reminisence (all of the below are from http://www.slate.com):

And goes on to provide URLs of three articles.

I'm probably opening up a hornets' nest and I am sorry the man died, but
one thing that really got me in the popular reporting was the (unsupported)
claim that Pavarotti was the Greatest Tenor of the Age.  Since they never
mentioned any other tenor -- Caruso, Slezak, Wunderlich, Tauber, Gigli,
Bjoerling, del Monaco, Melchior, Domingo, Windgassen, or even Corelli
or Schiotz -- it sounded to me like they knew no other, and it came
across as lazy journalism yet again.

I thought Pavarotti possessed an exciting, natural voice but nevertheless
used it very crudely and very predictably.  I greatly preferred him in
his very early career, when he was still a very lyric tenor.  *Then* he
had both tonal beauty and musicianship.  But, of course, you can't make
a career with Donizetti.  When he moved to the heavier roles, he became
coarse, probably the result of forcing the voice.

Still, he probably did as much as anyone to popularize opera.  "Nessun
dorma" a pop hit!  Who could have predicted?

Steve Schwartz

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