Pavarotti – Ordinary tragedy is not always operatic

Pavarotti, the new documentary by Ron Howard, was not well- reviewed and so didn’t make it to the top of the movies for date night list for the reluctant wife and me this summer, even though the rest of the movie world has felt like pretty slim pickings.  But we decided, on a particularly bleak movie weekend, to brave it.  I’m glad we did – though I might have preferred to wait for it on video – some of the other audience members seem to have thought it was already being screened in their living room so they chatted about their memories of the big events and, worse, sang along with the best arias – out of tune.  I really felt that the advantages of a good screen and great audio were somewhat wasted.

Luciano Pavarotti was born with a great voice and he studied the art of singing as a tenor.  This film does a nice job of filling in a little bit about what that means without becoming too technical or preachy.  Pavarotti became an opera star for the masses, and this film follows in that tradition.  And it is a tradition that was established long before Pavarotti – the film starts with a grainy video of Pavarotti going upriver in the Amazon to an perform – unannounced – in an opera house that Caruso performed in on one of his many world tours.  And Pavarotti clearly desires to, quite literally, follow in his footsteps as he sings to an almost entirely empty house just to say that he has filled the house that Caruso did with sound.

Pavarotti’s father was a baker and tenor in Modena, a small Italian town not far from Florence.  He has inherited there the mantle of the renaissance, which continues to flow from and support the growth of the individual spirit throughout the world – and Pavarotti’s life oddly mirrors that flowering – and some of its decay – or sprouting new wings and losing its way.

Pavarotti only came to realize himself as a great tenor after he already was one.  And he seems to have kept some of his boyish charm and a great deal of his fear of being out of place as he developed wings that took him far from his roots.  Many of the criticisms of this film include aspects of his character that are not highlighted here – that he failed to show up for performances at the Chicago Opera almost as frequently as he performed there.  That he failed to live up to his promise.  That he failed to learn how to read music.

I think this film allows Pavarotti’s failings to be read between the lines.  It is a celebration of him, but there is also a fair amount of appreciation for his failure to have stayed within the lines of a career.  Instead, he seems to have strayed away – to have been seduced by a variety of sirens.

First and foremost, Pavarotti was seduced by the siren of fame.  He shifted from a primarily operatic career – and we could see this as a career where he would have been performing for the moneyed and cultured elite – using his talents to keep alive a tradition of emotional expression that they would have enjoyed in their cloistered spaces – where all the trappings of wealth are dripping from the walls and ceilings.  And he would have been a kind of lightning rod for emotional experience - a kind of vicarious bringer of catharsis to those who, one might argue, need it most as they have to live lives that are regimented enough to be able to dress for the opera...

Instead, Pavarotti was lured by a Rock and Roll promoter to sing to the masses – to become a rock star.  Which he did.  He sang in outdoor concerts that attracted tens of thousands - including the reluctant wife and her BFFB (Best Friend From Birth) who saw him and the two other tenors perform in the old Detroit Tigers stadium.  And what attracted those who came, over the course of his lifetime – 10 million people – was more than just his phrasing of classical arias – though that was part of it – but his bigger than life persona – a persona that is poignantly portrayed here of a gregarious, happy man who is also tremendously needy and insecure.  Someone who says, before he performs, that we are going on stage to die. 

So Pavarotti’s second siren is that his neediness and ability draws people to him, including Princess Diana and Bono, and he joins the ranks of the transcendent stars – the people who, in the wake of Elvis – have a worldwide following.  But he makes use of this in interesting ways.  He travels to China where he both performs and teaches.  He starts to invite rock and roll stars to an annual event in Modena where they perform and raise money for causes – most all involving children.  And he shows up – much like Princess Diana – to connect with these children.  To fold them into his bigger than life persona.

The third siren, that of women, is one that is treated with a kind of protestant discomfort which I find a bit odd in this movie about a Catholic man.  Yes, Pavarotti had affairs.  How can you imagine that he did not?  He was a needy guy, with the voice, who spent most of his time far from home – pining for it – making pasta everywhere, but also pining for the contact – the intimate contact – of home.  That he had the two long time lovers that were interviewed – and I’m sure there were others who were not so long term – but that he had positive and ongoing relationships with two women is, I think, healthy - though they were both younger than he and dependent on him.  But he was devoted to them.  What was a problem in Catholic Italy was that he sued for divorce in order to marry one of his mistresses, I think, more than that he had dalliances.  While the women may have been disgusted, the eldest reluctant stepdaughter's experiences as student in Italy suggest that the men would have been cheering him on. 

In one of the revealing moments of the film, an older record executive tells of his first foray as a much younger man, into the world of being a record exec.  He was charged with confronting Pavarotti about the fact that he was not living up to his recording contract – he was recording for another label – the label owned by his wife.  Pavarotti asked the young exec if everything was OK.  The exec said no.  He said that Pavarotti had signed an exclusive agreement with Decca records.  Pavarotti wanted to know what exclusive meant.  After the exec explained it, Pavarotti’s response was, “Life is too short.”

Now the particular problem was solved by having Decca buy Pavarotti’s wife’s record company from her.  But the issue of exclusivity is one that is central but not attended to in a direct way through the rest of the film, though a red thread connects it to the elements in Pavarotti’s life.  He fails in fidelity to his wife, to the record company, but also to the Operatic community.  By doing this, he brings into his life regrets – chiefly about the schism that is created with his wife, but especially with his three daughters from the first marriage.  It is clear that he loves these girls and now women deeply.  He also creates a rift with the operatic community.

Finally, he uses his gift to take operatic arias to the masses – in addition to the 10 million who see him live, he sells 100 million records.  Wow.  And he teaches others how to sing.  But he does not take Opera to the masses, he takes himself – and the arias that he lifts out of context - and he promotes himself as a Rock and Roll star.  He doesn’t explain how the arias work – he doesn’t bring opera to life – he connects with his fans through his voice.  He provides catharsis for all.  And the masses become familiar with “Nessum Dorma” through him – and this leads, perhaps, to an unknown cell phone salesman in the UK performing that work on Britain’s Got Talent and bringing the house down – but it doesn’t lead the masses into the opera houses, nor does it lead to a proliferation of opera beyond the traditional venues.  Even though Pavarotti performed on the first live opera television show, beamed from the Met, it wasn’t something that “took”.  His solo performances were much more engaging and watched.

The film talked about Pavarotti losing focus – and this is, I think, what I mean by his losing fidelity.  He lost track of what brought him to the party – and he found the party so enticing that it was hard to keep on top of it – to use his position in the broadest way to organize his life rather than to be organized by it.  Bono, whom Pavarotti pestered into becoming a friend, characterized his later performances, which were marked by vocal breaks – not as the signs of a diminished capacity to sing, but as bringing his lived experience into the opera house to play the parts not just by being able to sing them, but by having lived them.  Bono was, in a weird way, echoing the eldest reluctant stepdaughter who has maintained that scars are souvenirs of life.

Pavarotti’s tragic end was not that he was shot, nor that he was poisoned or stabbed, but that he was hospitalized with cancer.  He was able to connect with all of this family members at the end of his life, and there is some solace in the realization of his having been loved as well as having loved - not just broadly, but intimately and closely, by mistresses, a wife, and four daughters.  My own protestant complaint about his lack of fidelity – something that has interfered in some of the analyses that I have conducted – becomes a judgement of his character – that he is not able to retain fidelity of character.

 

I think my criticism of Pavarotti’s character is harsh, though I think there is some truth to it.  I think it is harsh because his character was exposed to forces that were profoundly and powerfully disruptive.  He was adored by millions, travelling far from his home base – both in Modena and in the operatic scene – and he expressed his love in the life that was too short for him – for any of us – in the best way that circumstances allowed.  The critics would have had Howard take a more critical position regarding Pavarotti.  I, at least, was able to see, in the film itself, the person whose fidelity cracked.  I was also able to deeply empathize with his experience of his life becoming dearer as the room left to live it became shorter.  I found this, despite my fellow audience members, to be a deeply moving and instructive film.

  Bravo!

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