When an international superstar like Italy’s champion tenor Luciano Pavarotti dies, a horse race ensues for posthumous tributes. As Milan’s Corriere della Sera marveled, the first governmental condolences about Pavarotti, who died of pancreatic cancer in Modena, Italy this week at 71, came from the peripatetic, hyper-energetic Nicolas Sarkozy of France, even before Italy’s movers and shakers could be stirred from their early-autumn lethargy. A calculating and astute Northern Italian from Modena, Pavarotti was anything but the cartoon of a carefree, sunny Southern Italian that he projected on CD’s and in public appearances.
Despite allegations of casual musicianship, Pavarotti had many enduring achievements, including a 1967 Deutsche Grammophon DVD of Verdi’s Requiem conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and a Decca CD, also with Karajan, of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Gianandrea Gavazzeni, a true connoisseur of the Italian repertory, conducted CD’s of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana on Decca and L’ amico Fritz on EMI, which are also among Pavarotti’s best.
A characteristically ignorant critic like the always boorish and clueless Manuela Hoelterhoff, an employee of Michael Bloomberg, claims to “shudder with delight” at hearing Pavarotti bellow “Maria” from Bernstein’s West Side Story. Pav’s attempts at pop, like the best-selling Three Tenors Concert, are in fact best appreciated according to the criterion of a champion cyclist I once met, who said he played the Pavarotti CD on his earphones constantly during workouts because the lengthy explosions of applause kept his adrenaline going. The entire concept of “three tenors” is a surreal distortion of what opera is all about; arias written for a solo voice are shamelessly traduced when sung simultaneously by three voices. It should also be recalled that when the elegant Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus pointed out in 1992 that there were in fact more than three tenors in the world, he was banished—by none other than José Carreras, one of the mighty three—from participation in the musical events around the Barcelona Olympics.
Of Pavarotti’s efforts to share the stage with pop stars—many of which (it must be admitted, to lessen his personal culpability) were done for charity—probably the worst was Pavarotti with the Spice Girls in something called Viva Forever, with a close runner-up being the rock star Sting bleating out Franck’s Panis Angelicus. In other celebrity duets, Pavarotti simply stands or sits onstage with stars, singing in Italian against—rather than with—Barry White and James Brown. That said, Pavarotti’s duet with Meat Loaf on Come Back to Sorrento is not as bad as might be feared. Even when singing New York, New York with Liza Minnelli, Luciano sways anxiously like a grizzy bear on its hind legs, poised for attack.
Pop and schlock apart, Pavarotti’s burnished tone will long echo in our memory, regardless of the crass hype. It is our loss that Pavarotti was unable to imitate the longevity of his mother and father, who lived hale and hearty to the ages of 86 and 89 respectively. Lively and charming, Pavarotti conquered all.
“couldn’t North Koreans use that heating oil more than any Americans?”
I live in massachusetts and it’s pretty cold here.
But I think the local charities will be able to fill the gap due to the cheap oil prices anyway
Chavez has held near-absolute power over Venezuela’s government for a full 10 years now. Does there ever come a point at which he is expected to allow the “normal” liberties of a free republic? Or, are the types of spending/travel restrictions now imposed considered “normal” in the first place?
Damn. I was wondering why the heat went off.
Venezuela is a committed member of the Marxist-Islamic alliance.
Glad to see that Hugo Chavez is practicing more idiotic economics to get inflation under control in his country. Now would be a good time for the US to deliver a death blow to Venezuela by expanding its own domestic oil supplies, since we are the #1 importer of Venezuelan oil. If that doesn’t happen, then at least we can support a stronger dollar to drive the price of oil in the short term.
Um that last sentence should be “drive the price of oil down in the short term.”
Contentions, when will you guys invest in an “edit” link so we can edit prior posts?
The price of crude oil in Alaska went from $140 in July to $26 in December, reflecting worldwide price drops. In the previous two years, Venezuela had supplied $16 million worth of oil to very rural Alaskan villages in addition to donating large amounts to northern U.S. cities such as New York. Cutting this program in the midst of the economic shock would seem to be the rational response, yet critics never miss a chance to criticize Chavez and his efforts.
Hugo has enormously reduced the gap between the rich and the poor, hugely expanded literacy and has provided widespread medical care for the Venezuelan working class and poor. That shouldn’t be seen as a threat to or imposition on U.S. citizens by any rational person.
Were it not for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush probably would have invaded Venezuela by now. He did sponsor a short-lived coup against Chavez.
I’ve been a victim of currency restrictions most recently in 1981 when the Swedish government tried to slow the fall of the kroner by imposing such measures that were affecting most European currencies. Americans are regrettably so insulated from the rest of the world, so enfused with a sense of entitlement, they are unable to understand any economics that go beyond balancing their checkbooks on a monthly basis. Getting a handle on capital flight by its skittish wealthy is one way a country has to get a grip on severe economic problems. In the U.S., one can’t take more than $10,000 in cash in or out of the country without completing a customs form 4709. Currency restrictions apply perhaps in most countries around the world.
Our finance and heavy industry sectors are now experiencing the effects of the lack of any effective regulations and the country is socializing losses and protecting privatized profits.
While a poster above complained about the loss of “liberties” in a nation of which he or she probably couldn’t name two cities, the intrusion into our own domestic lives by the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, the Transportation “Safety” Agency, the National “Security” Agency’s secret and illegal wiretapping, etc., find little criticism on these pages.
The endless repetition of mindless slogans by Commentary readers won’t facilitate any helpful changes in these dynamics.
It’s time to get a clue.