The King of the High Cs is coming to the City of Sails for a week which may include yachting, horsing around and a concert. David Lawrence reports.
The voice, some of his more ardent admirers are sure, is a voice from God. And Luciano Pavarotti agrees.
"I think everything we have
is from God," he proclaims cheerfully. "The voice, the intelligence ... every, let's say, good quality we have."
Yes, but didn't he do well when the vocals were being handed out? It is a unique sound.
"You cannot make a transplant of voice," he says, apparently attempting a joke, "otherwise many people will buy."
Pavarotti is on the phone from a Brisbane hotel where he is preparing for the next concert on his tour the following night. He's done Sydney, Melbourne follows Brisbane, then it's Auckland.
He's due to arrive on Monday evening, the day after the Melbourne concert - the last of the Three Tenors to reach New Zealand. But it's not his first visit: "I was there just on the airport, changing my flight from one place to another. I think I was flying from Adelaide to Auckland to Europe."
He hasn't decided or doesn't wish to comment on his non-singing schedule for the week he's here. His publicist says nothing's been confirmed, but given his passion for horses a visit to some equestrian event is a possibility. And he has expressed interest in supporting the Italian challenge for the America's Cup.
As far as his own support crew goes, his partner, Nicoletta Mantovani, won't be accompanying him (she's apparently producing the musical Rent and is preparing for the opening in Milan). His "small entourage" will include his personal valet and masseuse.
It seems Pavarotti knows a bit more about New Zealand than he lets on. Asked if he'll be experiencing any Maori culture, he doesn't answer but says: "You mean 'Maori'" - rounding the vowels as they should be.
Told that Kiwis could do with cheering up after setbacks in the national sport, he says: "Well, we hope they like music." He doesn't follow rugby, despite Welsh connections early in his career.
"I'm sorry. Just soccer. I am a fanatic of soccer. I begin to play rugby once when I was young, then they massacre me and I say no."
A wise move, perhaps. At 64, Pavarotti might conceivably stand in a soccer goal but it's a stretch to picture him in a golden oldies footy game.
It was nine years ago that Nessun Dorma at the World Cup in Italy brought opera to the masses. Now no longer the King of the High Cs, the most famous tenor does not risk reaching for the final, triumphant "Vincero" of that aria.
Instead, the encores at Ericsson Stadium next Saturday might include Granada and O Sole Mio.The first half of the concert list is nearly all Puccini, with Pavarotti alternating and duetting with Italian soprano Carmela Remigio. In Australia he is with American soprano Elizabeth Holleque but she, he explains, "must go away" before the Auckland performance. "Always, they do what they want."
The second half will have Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Lehar and Neapolitan songs - much the same as in Sydney. How did that concert go?
"Very well, I think. I think it was very beautiful, incredible audience. They raised a lot of money for charity and we were very happy. I hope my concert there [in Auckland] goes the same way."
The review in the Sydney Morning Herald was headlined: "Superdome sound lets Pavarotti down." Did he notice the deficencies the newspaper mentioned?
"I don't know," is the reply, leaving it uncertain whether he noticed any problems or read any reviews.
It seems unlikely that he reads reviews. Roger Covell in the Sydney paper concluded: "Despite the limitations of the sound system and the inevitable comparisons with his earlier years, his tenor remains one of the most characterful and appealing voices of our time."
Not quite damning with faint praise, but a long way from the rapturous acclaim which began for Pavarotti in 1966 - in Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment with Joan Sutherland - and continued into the 90s. Now, critics are not always kind.Take this from Peter Conrad, profiling Pavarotti in the London Guardian:
"Pavarotti, unable to learn new tricks, can only compete with his younger self. In 1996 he mistakenly returned to La Fille du Regiment in New York, where sneaky transposition of the aria with nine high Cs meant that he didn't sing the exorbitant, expensive note even once.
"Sometimes he literally hides behind that younger self. At concerts in France and Italy he has been caught mouthing to playback from his own recordings. Like many old men, he relies on the rejuvenating presence of a nubile woman. His current mistress, Nicoletta Mantovani, is younger than his three daughters.
"Ironically, Pavarotti's best role is in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. He plays a rustic booby who's swindled into paying for an elixir of love, which turns out to be vinegary Bourdeaux. Nicoletta, policing his diet, is expected to dispense the elixir of youth.
"Despite her ministrations, every performance now is a strain. His knees are arthritic, buckled by his weight, and on a bad day his vocal cords can sound sclerotic.
"Pavarotti sadly and absurdly tries to cheat time by dyeing his hair and beard and inkily over-painting his eyebrows. At a concert in Modena the befuddled fellow looked like a triumph of the taxidermist's art and might have been posing for his effigy in Madame Tussauds."
Not at all kind. But look at the photo that accompanies ads for Pavarotti's Auckland concert - it appeared on the cover of a CD recorded in 1985.
Pavarotti is accused of being lazy (he does not read music and remembering is a chore) and capricious (last year he abruptly pulled out of Verdi's Requiem in London, and obliged the Met to replace a planned revival of Verdi's La Forza del Destino because, despite four years' advance notice of the engagement, he could not manage to learn the role).
There was a cancellation on this tour: he was to have sung at Adelaide after Auckland but organisers said he had to return to Europe for personal reasons, on which he doesn't elaborate. "We postpone because we will come back. In Perth one concert, and one in Adelaide. There's another group of concerts coming."
Should he have quit while he was ahead and left the best memories?
There may be an ego to match the frame, but Pavarotti does not pretend he is at the peak of his powers. Also, he denies the hair-dyeing: "That is not true, but it does not matter.
"Maybe it is not like when you have plenty, but you have something more. You lose something and you gain something."
Next weekend, an audience of maybe 25,000 will be able to check the balance sheet for themselves.
Who: Luciano Pavarotti
Where: Ericsson Stadium
When: Saturday, November 20
The King of the High Cs is coming to the City of Sails for a week which may include yachting, horsing around and a concert. David Lawrence reports.
The voice, some of his more ardent admirers are sure, is a voice from God. And Luciano Pavarotti agrees.
"I think everything we have
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