7 Luciano Pavarotti 7noted for its purity of tone, and his concerts, recordings,
and television appearances—which provided him ample
opportunity to display his ebullient personality—gained
him a wide popular following.
Pavarotti graduated from a teaching institute in
Modena (1955) and then taught elementary school for two
years. He studied opera privately, mostly in Mantua. After
winning the Concorso Internazionale, a singing competi-
tion, he made his professional operatic debut in 1961 as
Rodolfo in La Bohème (1896) in Reggio nell’Emilia, Italy.
He then played in opera houses throughout Europe and
Australia and performed the role of Idamante in Mozart’s
Idomeneo (1781) at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1964. He
made his first appearance in the United States in Miami in
1965, singing opposite Joan Sutherland as Edgardo in Lucia
di Lammermoor (1835). In 1968 he made his debut at the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, and from
1971 he was a regular performer there. Pavarotti toured
the world, performing to as many as 500,000 fans at a time
in outdoor venues, as a solo performer or as one of the
“Three Tenors” (with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras).
Among his many prizes and awards were five Grammy
Awards and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001.
His most notable operatic roles included the Duke in
Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (1851), Tonio in Gaetano
Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment (1840; a part remarkable for
its demanding sequence of high Cs), Arturo in Vincenzo
Bellini’s I puritani (1835), and Radamès in Verdi’s Aida
(1871), all of which are available as sound recordings. He
performed in a number of televised opera broadcasts. In
addition to his opera work, Pavarotti also recorded a col-
lection of Italian love songs (Amore [1992; “Love”]) and a
pop album (Ti adoro [2003; “I Adore You”]).
With William Wright he wrote Pavarotti: My Own
Story (1981) and Pavarotti: My World (1995). In 2004