Luciano Pavarotti, 20 years ago the last performance of the tenor who went pop (with an infinite legacy)

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The stage might only be that of the Metropolitan in New York. The role is that of Cavaradossi, a character he played several times for the New York audience to whom, following all, he owed his worldwide fame. On March 13, 2004, exactly 20 years ago, with the Tosca Luciano Pavarotti performed by Giacomo Puccini for the last time, closing a 43-year long career that had led more than one critic to define him as the greatest tenor of all time. Not the last performance ever, because following Big Luciano’s death, which occurred three years later, there would still be concerts and various appearances, but certainly the moment that certified the end of an era, his » era of him.

Italy as the world likes it

Pavarotti was both high and low; opera (and) pop; the most famous Italian in the world also for that wonderful ability to correspond to the idea that Italians have in the world: the artist gifted more than any other by mother nature and the boundless lover of what is beautiful and what is good ; the excellent communicator and the generous host who, like no one else, knows how to sit at the head of the table; the very archetype of Italians-good-people recognized at all latitudes. Whether or not he was the greatest tenor of all time can be a matter of discussion, the fact is indisputable that he invented the crossover between classical and popular music and the modern role of pop tenor.

The three “roads to Damascus” by Big Luciano

And in fact here we are not interested in talking regarding his skills as a lyrical interpreter but regarding the three “roads to Damascus” that transformed him into the great piece of collective imagination that we know. The first has to do, once once more, with the Metropolitan: «In ’76, eight years following my debut at the Met, I walked undisturbed through New York without anyone knowing who I was», Big Luciano told Corriere della Sera in 2004. «Then, in March ’77, PBS inaugurated the series of concerts live from the Met and within one night I mightn’t go down the street without being attacked». Translated: Pavarotti becomes Pavarotti on television and “leaves” the theaters to perform in large open-air arenas.

The second road to Damascus was that wonderful catalyst of processes called Italia ’90. On the occasion of the Football World Cup which was supposed to be the culmination of the 1980s Milan da bere, Big Luciano sets up a team-up with the greatest living tenors: together with him there are Placido Domingo and José Carreras. The repertoire is no longer just operatic but intelligently draws on folklore, be it folklore Granada o di Funicular funicular. The purists turn up their noses, some bother Gillo Dorfles and the Kitsch category but the result is a format with tens of millions of copies sold and sold-out tours around the planet. And Pavarotti becomes even more Pavarotti.

The advent of Pavarotti & Friends

The third way of Damasco is Zucchero who asks him to sing, with his voice set, the refrain of the title track of his album To pity (1992). The tenor from Modena would like to refuse, this time it really seems too much even for him, but in the end he gets involved. Galeotta was the daughter, a great fan of the Reggio Emilia bluesman, fresh from the exploits of Gold, incense and beer. The album was released, and in that case too it was a success with 1.4 million copies sold, but above all it opened the path for Big Luciano to Pavarotti & Friends, a charity festival which for ten editions would bring the elite of world music to Modena: from Bono to James Brown, from Lou Reed to Sting, from Stevie Wonder to Eric Clapton, just to name a few.