The Hindu : Pavarotti's grand finale

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 15, 2004

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International

Pavarotti's grand finale

Luciano Pavarotti during the curtain call of Puccini's "Tosca" at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on Saturday . — AP

NEW YORK, MARCH 14. This is the finale, Luciano Pavarotti said of Saturday's ``Tosca,'' one last opera on stage after more than four decades of the high Cs that transformed him from an insurance salesman to perhaps the most widely beloved classical singer ever.

All 4,000 tickets had been sold for Saturday night's production at the Metropolitan Opera House, the stage that made Mr. Pavarotti famous as the tenor with the big belly and super-sized smile.

He had said last summer that this would be his final staged performance at the Met. Mr. Pavarotti went a step farther: It was his final night of staged opera anywhere. ``Tomorrow is a very important day,'' the 68-year-old Italian said at his apartment overlooking Central Park. ``It is the last performance on the stage.''

He said back in 2002 that he intended to stop singing completely on October 12, 2005, his 70th birthday. His opera performances had been dwindling to a precious few: four in London in January 2002 and one in Berlin last June.

Last weekend, two years after a pair of famous cancellations at the Met caused by a cold, Mr. Pavarotti returned for the first of three appearances as Mario Cavaradossi, the young painter in Puccini's ``Tosca,'' with Carol Vaness in the title role, Jams Morris as the evil police chief Scarpia and Met artistic director James Levine conducting.

While reviewers said he was nearly immobile and his voice lacked the bloom of youth, they also were struck by moments when the distinctive, sweet ringing sound was still there, the voice that sold millions of recordings.

On Saturday night, he received a 35-second ovation when he walked on stage and appeared to be overcome with emotion as he started his first aria, ``Recondita armonia.'' His voice sounded somewhat constricted and he kept his eyes closed for much of the time, appearing to revel in the moment. There was a two-minute ovation at the end of the first act. His big third-act aria was followed by another two-minute ovation as flashbulbs popped throughout the house. At the conclusion of the opera, there was an 11-minute ovation that featured four solo curtain calls.

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