Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti passed away this morning.

I was privileged to hear him once at the Met singing Giordano's Andrea Chenier in the mid-90s. I was struck by two things about him during that performance. The first was the richness of his voice that was not apparent from recordings. He wasn't singing especially well that evening, and didn't seem to be in good voice, but the stunning quality of his gift was still overwhelming.

The other thing was more of a surprise. His persona comes across strongly in videos, but it can give the wrong idea. In person onstage, he had great humility. As I experienced his performance, my sense was that he was concentrating on the same work with his voice as all the other singers were doing with their voices - only his voice shone more brightly, even in that cast of international opera stars.