Luciano Pavarotti, a great musician for grown-ups: RIP

With his unmistakeable muscular tenor, Pavarotti was classical music’s superstar. Almost single-handedly, he took opera to the Anglo masses, after FIFA (and BBC TV) adopted his stirring Nessum Dorma aria, from Puccini’s Turandot, for Italia 90, the football World Cup tournament.

Pavarotti’s recordings, followed by those of the Three Tenors (viz Pavarotti and his two only slightly less stellar contemporaries, Domingo and Carreras), helped power a (short-lived) upsurge in the popularity of opera, an art form usually seen as far too exclusive. For a few years in the early 1990s, Pavarotti was a bona fide pop star.

Which might have tempted some opera buffs to sneer. But, unlike the army of opera-lite singers, both male and female, who have since attempted to supply the same market, Pavarotti was the real deal – he’d already spent an entire career as a kosher opera singer, a top draw in the top opera houses of the world. He’d been equally at home on the set of La Scala or the Metropolitan Opera House as he had been playing to classic-lite sell-out audiences at the Royal Albert Hall or Hyde Park.

Pavarotti’s talent dwarfed that of the successor generation whose popopera careers have been built on his success - modern pretenders who appear from nowhere at regular intervals, all fine voices and talented performers, but irredeemably lightweight when heard in a blind test alongside the real thing. Why anyone would listen to such singers when they could listen to Pavarotti, singing the same repertoire, immeasurably more convincingly, is a mystery. Well, no, it’s not really: it’s testament to the power of marketing.

Pavarotti recorded many complete operas in a long career stretching from the 1950s to well beyond the 1990s. The best known is his transcendent performance as Rodolfo, alongside the great soprano Mirella Freni in Puccini’s La Boheme. It’s highly recommended as a first disc for grown-ups tempted to try some opera, although absolute beginners might be better served by any of the three outstanding compilation discs which made Pavarotti such a crossover success - Essential Pavarotti, Essential Pavarotti 2, and Tutto Pavarotti.

Though, inevitably, his voice had developed some rough edges, Pavarotti was still the benchmark tenor as he started saying farewell. And still the biggest star in the operatic firmament. By a mile.

May he rest in peace.



Gerry Smith

Rameau - early Proms pacemaker

Previewing the first weekend of Proms concerts, it was easy to see which would be the least compelling for this grown-up: Saturday’s - Music from Great British Films, featuring music by Walton, Vaughan Williams et al. No thanks.

Friday’s opening night gig, the Elgar Cello Concerto and Beethoven 9, had looked stongest before the event; it proved only mildly diverting, straying uncomfortably close to Soothing Classical Crossover Greats for Nice People.

Sunday’s Prom, featuring 18thC opera excerpts by French composer Rameau, had seemed a bit too recherché for this listener. Especially as it was to be decorated by ballet, as it would have been in its 1700s royal court setting.

Wrong! Prom 3 was magnificent, revealing Rameau’s brilliance to a largely unsuspecting new audience. The classical troupe, dancing in front of English Baroque Soloists, were engaging, but they were upstaged by Dance For All, the electrifying South African troupe, backed by the exciting Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble.

Pre-Revolutionary French operatic court music dramatically refreshed by performers from an African slum! Hallelujah! Music is music is music: forget the labels.

This was inspired Proms programming, opening new doors for millions: bravo! The 2007 season is off to a flying start.


Gerry Smith

The Proms – massive annual London festival – kicks off on Friday

The Proms, the massive London classical festival, kicks off on Friday (13 July) and runs for seven weeks to 8 September.

Like any body of music, from rock to hip-hop, folk to jazz, the Proms has its share of stellar sequences, mediocre mush, and worse. The top gigs, best experienced standing on the floor of the Albert Hall, are usually music year highlights for grown-ups.

World-class concerts – must-hear music/must-see performers in the programme of 71 gigs include:

· Tuesday 24 July: Verdi’s Macbeth, London Phil
· Monday 6 August: Beethoven 8 etc, Renee Fleming
· Tuesday 7 August: Bach cantatas, Bach Collegium Japan
· Sunday 12 August: Wagner’s Gotterdammerung
· Friday 24 August: Bruckner 8, Royal Concertgebouw

All concerts are also broadcast on BBC Radio 3, accessible online.

Beware the Proms geeks, though. Classical audiences always have more than their fair share of weirdos - the jerks who had no friends at school. They don’t improve with age, and the Proms attracts them in droves. The "legendary" Last Night – squirm-inducing Boy Scouts acting silly for a TV audience of, er, people who must watch a lot of TV - should be avoided at all costs.


Gerry Smith

Beethoven’s Fidelio: the great Ludwig comes unstuck

Beethoven composed some of the greatest, best-loved music in the Western canon. His 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th symphonies are massively popular masterpieces.

Ditto some of his piano music, notably: concertos nos 5 (Emperor), and 3, as well as the exquisite Pathetique, Moonlight, and Appassionata sonatas.

Beethoven’s sole opera, Fidelio, has its supporters, so I approached the current London (Royal Opera House) production with high hopes.

They were dashed. Despite a delightful overture and much fine singing and acting, especially by the statuesque Finnish soprano Karita Mattila in the title role, this Fidelio was tosh.

Written in the glow of the French Revolution, it has a suitably epic backcloth – the freedom of the individual, fighting back against tyrants of the old order. But the messages are ladled on far too thickly to be anything other than risible. It lacks dramatic tension. The characters are cardboard. The plot meanders. And the direction of this Covent Garden production is weak.

Beethoven was wise to stop writing operas after this one: his towering reputation wouldn’t have survived many more farragoes like Fidelio.


Gerry Smith

World-class opera – FREE next week

If you’ve half fancied trying opera, but didn’t want to risk wasting money, here’s your chance. The Royal Opera production of Mozart's Don Giovanni is playing at a big screen, outdoors, near you on Wednesday 13th June at 7pm:

BELFAST Botanic Gardens
BIRMINGHAM Chamberlain Square
BRADFORD Centenary Square Terrace
DERBY Market Place
HULL Queen Victoria Square
LEEDS Millennium Square
LIVERPOOL Clayton Square
LONDON Covent Garden Piazza
MANCHESTER Exchange Square
ROTHERHAM All Saints' Square

As the Royal Opera says: “Bring a picnic, bring your family and friends and don't miss the magic and excitement of one of Mozart's most popular operas - ABSOLUTELY FREE!”

It’s a great opera, with a fine cast. Kudos: Royal Opera.


Gerry Smith

NOT Classics for Grown-Ups

NOT Classics for Grown-Ups: The Classical Brit Awards on TV last Sunday: a celebration of dumbing down of a great musical tradition. Anna Netrebko… Katherine Jenkins…

Awful. I lasted a whole five minutes.



Gerry Smith

Top 10 classical recordings

Thanks to Cecilia Mort who sent the Classic FM Top 10 recordings - voted for by listeners and broadcast in the station’s annual Easter weekend countdown of the top 500.

Grown-up music ratio? On this evidence, about 50%.

1 (3 last year) The Lark Ascending Vaughan Williams
2 (7) Cello Concerto Elgar
3 (2) Piano Concerto No 2 Rachmaninov
4 (1) Clarinet Concerto Mozart
5 (4) Piano Concerto No 5 Beethoven (“Emperor”)
6 (9) Enigma Variations Elgar
7 (5) Violin Concerto No 1 Bruch
8 (6) Symphony No 6 Beethoven (“Pastoral”)
9 (8) Symphony No 9 Beethoven (“Choral”)
10 (11) Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis Vaughan Williams



Gerry Smith