Luciano Pavarotti

[jhetley]

Dead, of pancreatic cancer.

I'm not a big fan of opera, with long sieges of "Martha, take out the laundry" sung in embellished Italian and with dying consumptive heroines still managing to reach the second balcony.  But the man had a voice and a passion that even I could enjoy.

Comments

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Well, if you understand the words they aren't exactly that silly and they are not embellished Italian (for no other reason that some of them are in French and some in German). And I happen to think that enjoying some arias out of context reduces the enjoyment you get out of them. Cutting out "vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore" from Tosca, for example, makes it a pretty boring whiny song, instead of a heartbreaking powerful cri de cour.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

My comments represented a rather condensed version...

To me, opera suffers from a multiple-personality disorder. It can't decide whether it is a musical presentation or a play, and often the two faces interfere with each other. Putting it in SF/F terms, I suffer a "suspension of disbelief" attack. Comedies, such as _The Marriage of Figaro_, come off better in this regard.

Wagner, I'm afraid, comes off _better_ as concert excerpts than in context.

All IMHO.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that the majority of operatic sopranos could strip paint off a battleship with their voices alone.

That said, if I must listen to opera, I find Wagner more listenable than most, not because the opera factors are improved, but because his music is wonderful. I don't have any actual operatic recordings, and I usually skip the fifth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony because the chorale from Schiller's Ode to Joy makes me wince, but I have have two CDs of Wagner overtures.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

A sad loss. His was indeed a beautiful voice.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

>Not to mention that the majority of operatic sopranos could strip paint off a battleship with their voices alone.

I think that's because so many of the mediocre singers have to force their voices. It isn't just sopranos, though they take most of the heat.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It isn't just sopranos, though they take most of the heat.

I agree it isn't just sopranos, but the sopranos are the most painful when they force it. A baritone or an alto pushing their range a bit can usually get away with it. A soprano pushing it can be like an icepick to the eardrum.
So they may take most of the heat, but it's deserved, IMHO.