57 Fun Facts About Luciano Pavarotti

Which singer got his big break in 1992 when Pavarotti heard his voice on a demo tape?

Andrea Bocelli. Zucchero hired him to sing the demo of Miserere, a duet meant for Pavarotti, who liked the unknown voice so much that he urged Zucchero to use Bocelli instead.

By what nickname did Pavarotti become known in the early 1970s?

Pavarotti was dubbed the King of the High Cs after his 1972 Metropolitan Opera breakthrough in a Donizetti comedy, where he tossed off the aria's run of top Cs with ease.

Which aria became Pavarotti's trademark song after the BBC used it for the 1990 World Cup?

Nessun dorma, Calaf's Act 3 aria, became Pavarotti's signature piece after the BBC adopted his recording as its 1990 World Cup theme, sending it to No. 2 on the pop singles chart.

Which two singers joined Pavarotti in the Three Tenors?

Plácido Domingo and José Carreras. Their first concert, in 1990, was also a welcome back for Carreras after leukaemia treatment, and it raised money for the foundation he had set up.

Where did the Three Tenors first perform, on the eve of the 1990 World Cup final?

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome. The night went so well that the three sang again at the next three World Cups, in Los Angeles, Paris and Yokohama.

Which Neapolitan song did all three of the Three Tenors sing together as an encore at their first concert?

'O sole mio. Its 1898 tune had reached pop listeners long before the tenors took it up: with new English words it became Elvis Presley's worldwide hit It's Now or Never.

Pavarotti's signature aria is sung by the unknown prince Calaf in which Puccini opera?

Turandot. Puccini died in 1924 with its final scene unwritten, so another composer, Franco Alfano, completed the score in time for the 1926 premiere in Milan.

In 1986 Pavarotti marked 25 years on stage with a tour, filmed as Distant Harmony, to which country?

China. He took a cast of young competition winners to Beijing to stage a full opera, then closed the visit with a concert in the Great Hall of the People.

What was Pavarotti's father's trade?

Baker. Fernando Pavarotti also had a fine tenor voice but, by his son's account, gave up any thought of a singing career because he suffered from nerves.

What sporting career did the young Pavarotti dream of before choosing music?

Football goalkeeper. He played in goal for his home town's junior team, and the sport repaid him decades later when a World Cup broadcast turned one of his recordings into a chart hit.

In 1963 Pavarotti got his international break standing in for his idol Giuseppe Di Stefano at which London venue?

Covent Garden. The Royal Opera House had hired him only as cover in case Di Stefano cancelled; when the star withdrew, the little-known understudy sang the rest of the run.

Which Hollywood singer did the teenage Pavarotti imitate in the mirror after seeing his movies?

Mario Lanza. He played Caruso in the 1951 film The Great Caruso, which also set one of Pavarotti's future Three Tenors partners singing arias around the house as a boy of six.

What job did Pavarotti hold for two years before committing to music?

Elementary school teacher. He taught for two years, then sold life insurance to pay for his voice lessons, and by one account his charm made him very good at it.

Which chart-topping pop group joined Pavarotti on stage at his 1998 charity concert in Modena?

Spice Girls. Two weeks after Geri Halliwell quit, the remaining four sang Viva Forever with him at a benefit for orphans of Liberia's civil war, filmed by the director Spike Lee.

In 1955 Pavarotti had his first singing success when his Modena male choir won first prize in which country?

Wales. The Corale Rossini, with Pavarotti and his father in its ranks, took first prize at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod, and he went back to sing there 40 years later.

Which soprano from Modena shared a voice teacher with Pavarotti and later sang Mimì opposite him?

Mirella Freni. Born in Modena in the same year as Pavarotti, she travelled with him to singing lessons in Mantua for three years, and in 1965 she was the Mimì at his first night in Milan.

What made Pavarotti decide to quit singing early in his training, before his voice came together?

A nodule on his vocal cords led to a disastrous concert in Ferrara, and Pavarotti resolved to give up; he credited his sudden improvement afterwards to the psychological release of that decision.

In which role did Pavarotti make his professional debut in Reggio Emilia in April 1961?

Rodolfo in La bohème. The part was his prize for winning a singing contest, and the young poet stayed his calling card: he also made his first appearances in Milan and New York in it.

Pavarotti made his American debut in Miami in 1965 opposite which soprano?

Joan Sutherland. A tall woman, she wanted a tenor she would not dwarf and took him on her tour of Australia, and he later credited her with teaching him how to breathe correctly.

Which conductor requested Pavarotti for his La Scala debut in La bohème in 1965?

Herbert von Karajan asked for Pavarotti for the La Scala revival of the Zeffirelli La bohème in 1965, the tenor's first appearance at the house.

With which pop star did Pavarotti record the 1996 hit single Live Like Horses?

Elton John. He wrote the ballad with Bernie Taupin; on the single Pavarotti answers his lines in Italian, and the pairing took it into the top ten at the end of 1996.

In which Donizetti opera did Pavarotti famously hit nine top notes in a single aria?

La fille du régiment. He first sang the young soldier Tonio in London in 1966, and when he repeated the aria Ah! mes amis in New York in 1972 the ovations made him a star in America.

When illness kept Pavarotti from singing at the 1998 Grammy Awards, which soul star stepped in at the last minute?

Aretha Franklin. With the broadcast already under way she agreed to sing his signature aria in his place, a piece she had performed two nights earlier at a gala in his honour.

At his first solo recital, in Missouri in 1973, a nervous Pavarotti picked up which prop that became his trademark?

A white handkerchief. With no opera props to hold, he said he was nervous about where to put his hands, so he clutched one, and kept the habit because the night brought him luck.

Pavarotti went on the BBC in 2005 to deny a long-running claim that he had never learned to do what?

Read music. He told Jeremy Paxman that he read a singer's part perfectly well and struggled only with a full orchestral score; a former manager's memoir had said he learned his roles by rote.

With which record label did Pavarotti record almost exclusively throughout his career?

Decca. The exclusive deal began with a recital disc in the 1960s and lasted the rest of his life; in 1990 it even put the label in the pop singles chart, at No. 2, with an opera aria.

Which company banned Pavarotti for life in 1989 after years of cancelled appearances?

The Lyric in Chicago. He had pleaded ill health for his withdrawals, but when he pulled out yet again its general director, Ardis Krainik, said the house would never engage him again.

In June 1993 about 500,000 people heard Pavarotti sing in which American city park?

Central Park. Critics accused him of crass commercialism for such mass concerts, but the crowds loved them, and millions more watched this one on television.

On which 1995 U2 song did Pavarotti sing?

Miss Sarajevo. U2 and Brian Eno released it as Passengers, with Pavarotti singing the Italian solo; it salutes a beauty pageant held in the besieged city during a war for whose victims he and Bono collected aid.

Which Irish rock singer joined Pavarotti for Schubert's Ave Maria at a 1995 charity concert?

Dolores O'Riordan. The Cranberries singer came to Modena for his benefit for the children of Bosnia, and on the same night sang her band's hit Linger as a duet with Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon.

What was Pavarotti's only feature film, a 1982 romantic comedy that flopped?

Yes, Giorgio (1982), an MGM romantic comedy, lost money at the box office, but its John Williams song If We Were in Love was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

What was Pavarotti's final role at the Metropolitan Opera in March 2004?

Cavaradossi in Tosca. It was his second try at a farewell: in 2002 he had pulled out of the same opera at the same house hours before he was due on stage, saying he had flu.

At which event did Pavarotti give his final performance, in February 2006?

The Winter Olympics in Turin. He rose from a wheelchair to close the opening ceremony with his signature aria, but it was mimed: unsure of his voice, he had recorded it in advance, his conductor later revealed.

Of what illness did Pavarotti die in September 2007?

Pancreatic cancer. He had surgery in New York in July 2006 and meant to pick up his farewell tour the next year, but he never sang in public again and died at home in Modena aged 71.

Which blooms, Pavarotti's favourites, decked his white coffin at his funeral in Modena in 2007?

Sunflowers. Inside the cathedral the mourners gave him one last standing ovation as a recording played of the tenor singing a duet with his father.

In 1992 the La Scala audience booed Pavarotti in which Verdi opera?

Don Carlo. He had opened the season in a new Zeffirelli staging, and after that reception he never sang the role at the Milan house again.

Whom did Pavarotti marry in a lavish, star-studded ceremony in December 2003?

Nicoletta Mantovani. The two had been a couple for years; he said their daughter Alice, nearly a year old at the wedding, was the main reason they finally married.

Which tax haven did Pavarotti long claim as his official residence, a claim Italian prosecutors disputed?

Monaco. He gave his address as Monte Carlo while keeping homes in Italy; the dispute cost him millions before a court in Modena cleared him in 2001 of filing false tax returns.

Which UN role was Pavarotti appointed to in 1998?

Messenger of Peace was the title Kofi Annan conferred on Pavarotti in 1998; in 2001 the UNHCR also gave him its Nansen Medal for his fundraising for refugees.

In which Bosnian city did Pavarotti finance a music centre after the war?

Mostar. The Pavarotti Music Centre opened there in December 1997 in a former primary school, paid for with the takings of his charity concerts, and offers music therapy to the young.

What was the name of the annual charity concerts the tenor hosted in his home town with pop stars?

Pavarotti & Friends. The concerts paired him with rock and pop stars to raise money for children caught up in wars, and the takings built a music therapy centre in Bosnia that bears his name.

Who directed the 2019 documentary film Pavarotti?

Ron Howard. He said what drew him was less the music than the human story behind it: a life with the highs and lows of great drama, lived by a man full of contradictions.

Roughly how many records had Pavarotti sold by his death in 2007?

100 million. He reached that scale by recording far beyond opera, from Italian popular songs and Christmas albums to duets with pop stars.

With which French singer did Pavarotti perform Gounod's Ave Maria at a 1990 Bolshoi benefit?

Charles Aznavour joined Pavarotti for Gounod's Ave Maria at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1990, a benefit for victims of the December 1988 earthquake in Armenia.

Which Italian singer-songwriter wrote Caruso, the ballad Pavarotti sang with him in Modena?

Lucio Dalla wrote Caruso in 1986; he and Pavarotti sang it together at the tenor's Modena charity concerts, and Pavarotti's own recording became one of his best-known non-operatic tracks.

In 1984 Pavarotti took a solo concert out of the opera house to 20,000 fans at which New York venue?

Madison Square Garden. His manager, Herbert Breslin, had set out to carry the tenor beyond opera to a mass public, and the arena concert was also shown to millions on PBS.

Pavarotti won a 1983 Emmy for an opera he staged with winners of his own voice competition in which American city?

Philadelphia. He founded the competition there with the city's opera company and then sang on stage beside its young winners, a contest credited with launching many careers.

On the day Pavarotti died in 2007, his home town of Modena said it would name what after him?

Its theatre. The city announced the tribute within hours of his death, while in Vienna the State Opera raised a black flag over the house in mourning.

Which American lifetime-achievement honour did Pavarotti receive in 2001, with a surprise visit by Kofi Annan?

The Kennedy Center Honors recognised Pavarotti in December 2001 alongside Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones and Jack Nicholson.

Pavarotti's 1990 compilation The Essential Pavarotti topped which country's album chart?

The United Kingdom. The album spent four weeks at No. 1 there in 1990, the year a BBC football theme carried his voice far beyond the opera audience.

Which conductor led the first Three Tenors concert in 1990?

Zubin Mehta. He welded two Italian orchestras into one for the night, and when the three singers reunited four years later he was back on the podium.

Where did Pavarotti's mother, Adele Venturi, work?

A cigar factory. Adele Venturi was also the parent who backed his wish to study singing; his father, who knew what the career cost, took longer to agree.

In March 1977 Pavarotti starred in the first-ever telecast of which series?

Live from the Met. The broadcast drew a record television audience for an opera and won him a public far beyond the opera house; in 1978 PBS also telecast his solo recital from the same stage.

Whom did Pavarotti marry in 1961, the mother of his three daughters?

Adua Veroni met Pavarotti in the 1950s, long before his fame, and in 1992 published a memoir of their years together, Life with Luciano; the couple later separated and divorced.

In which London park did Pavarotti sing for over 100,000 rain-soaked fans in 1991?

Hyde Park hosted the free concert marking 30 years of his career; Diana, who is said to have refused an umbrella so as not to block the view behind her, heard him dedicate a Puccini aria to her.

Which Paris landmark formed the backdrop to the Three Tenors' concert during the 1998 World Cup?

The Eiffel Tower rose behind the stage on the Champ de Mars; the first World Cup concert had been such a hit that the trio sang at the next three tournaments too, Paris being the second of them.

At which English festival did Pavarotti sing Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo in 1964?

Glyndebourne, the country-house opera festival in Sussex, recorded the performance; the tape sat in its archive for decades until the festival's own label released it on CD.