Whygold’s Weekend

… under this motto I present you my music tip for the weekend.
Maybe one or the other discovers something new.

Consciously listening to music is, in my opinion, as important as reading a good book.

Today: Luciano Pavarotti – Pavarotti Forever

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kRaWx_d0fIOYidL-SSg5cfz6p7R044FL4

Luciano Pavarotti (* October 12, 1935 in Modena; † September 6, 2007 ibid) was an Italian opera singer (tenor). He is considered beyond the borders of opera and classical music as one of the most important tenors of all time. As a member of the Three Tenors and as a duet partner of many pop artists, Pavarotti became a superstar. He also used his fame for benefit concerts.
Luciano Pavarotti was one of the most famous tenors of his time and, together with Maria Callas, the best-selling opera star. In his heyday, he sold twice as many records as Carreras and Domingo (the other two of the Three Tenors) combined. He was the first classical artist whose CD recordings hit the pop charts and broke into the pop field in terms of sales.
At the beginning of his career, Pavarotti was a light lyric tenor – ideal for the roles of Bellini, Donizetti and the young Verdi.[28] In the course of time, however, his voice also developed towards more dramatic parts up to verismo, the genre of opera founded by Puccini, Mascagni and Leoncavallo, narrating the daily life of the average person and characterized by very dramatic music.
According to Herbert von Karajan, Pavarotti was a tenor of the century, a voice that exists only once every 100 years. In the last opera performance under Herbert von Karajan’s direction, Luciano Pavarotti sang the part of Cavaradossi (Tosca by Giacomo Puccini, Salzburg Easter Festival, 1989).
Pavarotti’s complete opera recordings are considered outstanding works of vocal art. However, it was precisely his great success in terms of record sales and his rise to superstardom, crossing the boundaries from classical to pop star, that brought him criticism from purists and critics. It was also repeatedly claimed that Pavarotti himself said he could not read music.[29] His audience, however, had a clear attitude: on February 24, 1988, 165 curtain calls[9][10] were registered at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin after his performance as Nemorino in Donizetti’s Love Potion, during 67 minutes of[30] uninterrupted applause.
In addition to his stage career, he pursued an equally successful concert career, which reached its peak in the 1990s. Even before the Three Tenors concerts, Pavarotti gave an open air concert in London’s Hyde Park in 1992 in front of 250,000 people and his biggest in New York’s Central Park in 1993 in front of 500,000 listeners, making it the best attended classical concert by a solo artist to date.
Along the way, he also consistently pursued the division of crossover with the so-called “Pavarotti and Friends” concerts, in which he recorded duets with many current pop stars that sold a total of over ten million copies. The single Miss Sarajevo with Bono by U2 reached #6 in the British pop charts and #1 in Latvia.
In his career Pavarotti has sung on all the great international stages of the world and worked with almost all the great conductors of his time. In addition to Joan Sutherland and Mirella Freni, his singing partners included Montserrat Caballé, Maria Chiara, Ileana Cotrubaș and Kiri Te Kanawa.
(Source: Wikipedia)

I can still remember exactly when Pavarotti sang “Nessun dorma” at the concert of the Three Tenors, in Rome on the eve of the final of the 1990 World Cup in Italy – a real goosebump moment !

Have fun listening to this album !

Your Chris Weigold

P.S.: Maybe you enjoy the listening pleasure together with a glass of wine from our “Orchester der Kulturen Edition”.