This year marks what would have been Luciano Pavarotti’s 90th birthday. Born in Modena, Italy, on 12th October 1935 he died there on 6th September 2007. One of the most iconic voices in music history, Decca Records is honouring this milestone by spearheading PAVAROTTI 90, a 74-track collection exploring the full journey of Pavarotti’s musical life while also celebrating the tenor’s unmatched contribution to classical music, his international appeal and his legacy of bringing opera to the masses.
Therefore, ‘Novanta’ begins at the very beginning, a very good place to start, with a remarkable moment from 1961 documenting the first known recording of Pavarotti’s voice singing Rodolfo’s famous aria ‘Che gelida manina’ from Puccini’s La bohème, the role in which he made his professional début in at the Teatro Municipal, a small Italian opera-house in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy located in the Po Valley about 50 km from Bologna on the Via Emilia bordering Parma to the west and Modena to the east. A couple of years later he was unexpectedly propelled to the grand and imposing stage of London’s Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
The character of the struggling poet, Rodolfo, became a signature role for Pavarotti and I well remember attending a performance of La bohème at the Royal Opera House witnessing a very young Pavarotti making his house début in the role standing in at short notice for an indisposed Giuseppe Di Stefano, a big opera star at the time. The year: 1963.
I clearly remember, too, the gossip in the Crush Bar (those were the days, eh!) with the swishy opera cognoscenti asking: ‘Who the hell is Pavarotti?’ ‘Never heard of him,’ said another. They soon found out, though. At the time, Di Stefano was the star of the show. Pavarotti, however, would soon outclass him and many of his rivals to become one of the world’s greatest and most popular opera stars – and the star of his own show!
However, the tracks on Decca’s ‘Novanta’ collection are presented in the order in which the recordings were made. Always an exclusive Decca recording artist, Pavarotti sings some of the great operatic tenor roles as well as Italian song in duet with some of the world’s most acclaimed rock and pop artists and superstar friends not forgetting, of course, the recordings he made with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras as part of the ‘Three Tenors’. And a couple of specially commissioned pop songs, taken from his final studio album ‘Ti Adoro’, released in 2003, are also listed in this super bumper Pavarotti collection.
Alongside this unique recorded music odyssey, Decca is also including some special rarities, recent discoveries and previously unheard tracks to round off the ‘Novanta’ collection. From the first known recording featuring the voice of Pavarotti, captured as he sang in a choir competition in Llangollen, North Wales, in 1955, through to arias from a special anniversary concert given in the same location 40 years later, there’s much to be cherished for the very first time.
New discoveries, rarities and previously unheard tracks include ‘Pavarotti & Friends’ featuring duets with Queen, Lou Reed and Barry White while a trio of arias from the previously unreleased Llangollen concert of 1995 ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ with the Three Tenors is available for the first time digitally and unheard since 1998 while five tracks from the 1978 concert at Notre-Dame de Montréal, is also available for the first time on Decca. And one of the only known recordings of ‘Bonjour mon cœur’ by Orlando di Lasso, recorded in 1955, is thought to be the first known recording by Pavarotti.
Pavarotti’s widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, had this to say: ‘On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Luciano’s birth, my thoughts go to the extraordinary man he was, capable of bringing opera into the hearts of millions, of combining impeccable technique and pure emotion and of blending excellence and authenticity like never before. Luciano believed deeply in the power of music to bring people together, to lift the spirit, to inspire.
‘His voice continues to ring out today with the same strength and charisma as ever – in every note, its beauty and grace remain untouched. On this important anniversary, we wanted to collect some of his most iconic performances in an album that represents a journey into Luciano’s heart and life.
‘It’s a fitting tribute to his art but also to his mission: to make music a universal heritage without barriers. Each song is a caress, a living memory, an invisible thread that still connects us to him. Luciano loved his audience with a rare intensity. He felt every applause as a hug and every concert as a mutual gift. Today, with this album, that gift goes on. It is our way of celebrating him, of saying thank you, of keeping him close to us, alive in his notes, in his smile, in the voice that continues to touch the world.’
To add prominence to Pavarotti’s 90th, Mercury Studios has unveiled a deeply moving new 60-minute documentary that resurrects that long-forgotten performance by Pavarotti of the ‘Lost Concert’ which is built round a remarkable rediscovery, the singer’s emotional return to the small Welsh town of Llangollen in the summer of 1995, to fulfil a promise he made four decades earlier.
Therefore, for the first time, Pavarotti’s ‘Lost Concert’ brings this emotional homecoming back to life combining restored footage, intimate archive and newly commissioned interviews with those who witnessed the performance – the first steps of a legend and of his final return.
Therefore, the recording of the ‘Lost Concert’ from Llangollen released on Decca Classics and Mercury Studios’ BluRay edition witnesses Pavarotti at the height of his powers performing with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra featuring the Japanese soprano Atzuko Kawahara and Chorale Rossini, an amateur choir from Pavarotti’s birthplace, Modena.
The recording has been re-mastered and comes with a 100-page collector’s book filled with essays, photographs and archive material as well as a rare interview where Pavarotti recalls his first visit to Wales. Also included are two original 1955 recordings by Chorale Rossini ‘Bonjour mon cœur’ and ‘In Nomine Jesu’ which are believed to be the earliest surviving recordings of Pavarotti’s voice.
However, if singing the role of Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème started Pavarotti on his road to fame and fortune it must be said that the aria ‘Nessun dorma’ (‘Let no one sleep’) from the final act of Puccini’s Turandot which achieved pop status after his 1972 recording was used as the theme song of BBC television’s coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, put Pavarotti well and truly on the international stage. Bravo!
