Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Pavarotti Padre



Amazing. Pavarotti always said that his father could have been a great opera star too if he didn't have terrible stage fright. Judging purely by my extremely scientific analysis of this 100-second clip, there's no way to argue. Both Pavarotti and his father have the exact same perfect Italian vowels (albeit this is a French piece by a Belgian composer in Latin) and the exact same way of inflecting phrases when they get really into the music. Luciano is clearly holding back here to give his untrained father a chance to be heard equally well, and Fernando Pavarotti had to have been at least seventy here, but even at that advanced age he seems to have a greater squillo (trumpet-like resonance) that would have made him better than his son at the heavier roles (late Verdi, verismo stuff) which gave Luciano so much trouble in later years.

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