THE FINAL WORD
ITALIA!
ICONS
Luciano Pavarotti was born
in Modena in 1935 and died
there in 2007, at the age
of 71. He married twice,
had four daughters and was
bestowed with Italy’s greatest
honour, Knight Grand Cross
with Collar, in recognition of
his services to the Republic.98 ITALIA! November 2016L
uciano Pavarotti will always
be remembered for having
brought opera – Italy’s most
successful musical artform- to the people. And in the process
of doing so, he was rewarded by
becoming the most widely-known
opera singer of all time.
Already a star in Italy, at least
in operatic circles, his fame became
global when the BBC picked up his
rendition of the aria Nessun Dorma,
from Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot,
as the theme tune for its coverage
of the 1990 World Cup.
That tournament, Italia ’90 as
it is usually now known, is in itself
considered to have been highly
successful in bringing the sport
to the attention of many who had
never expressed much interest in
football before, but when Pavarotti,
accompanied by fellow ‘Three
Tenors’ Plácido Domingo and José
Carreras, held a concert at the Baths
of Caracalla in Rome on the eve of
the 1990 World Cup Final, which
they concluded with Nessun Dorma,
literally billions of people around
the world heard the song – many
for the first time – and the entire
tournament, as a cultural event,
took on a life greater than itself.
This is the extent to which Pavarotti
brought opera to the people.
Nessun Dorma was also part
of his final performance, at the
opening of the Winter Olympics
in Turin in February 2006. It will
now, forever be his song.
There were opera stars before
him, and many more will follow,
but in his time Pavarotti was
the voice of opera for billions
of people around the world...LUCIANO
PAVAROTTI
#16
Photograph © Tiddy Maitland/EMPICS EntertainmentIT144.Italia!Icons.sg4.indd 98 28/09/2016 14:17pm