Audio slideshow: classical editor Neil Fisher remembers Luciano Pavarotti

The greatest opera singer of our generation? Almost certainly that won’t be posterity’s verdict on Luciano Pavarotti, although he undoubtedly had one of the finest natural voices of our times.

Wonderfully burnished in timbre, yet (in its prime) superbly supple and agile, it was a honeyed instrument that could caress the luscious contours of some sentimental Neapolitan song as effectively as it could delineate the quicksilver coloratura of a showcase Bellini or Donizetti aria.

Whatever the repertoire, the young Pavarotti made singing seem as simple and as joyous as plucking apples off a tree. Even the thrilling high Cs that he regularly tossed into his recitals (whether the composers had written them or not) sounded utterly effortless.

The life of Pavarotti

Life and times of Luciano Pavarotti

Multimedia

• Video: the best of Pavarotti

• Audio: Neil Fisher on Pavarotti

• Pavarotti's career in pictures

BACKGROUND

• Home town hails Pavarotti - warts and all

• Comment: Pavarotti, the global reach of a pop star

• Luciano Pavarotti

By the standards of, say, his great rival Placido Domingo, his acting skills and musical ambitions were limited. He was content to operate within a very small area of Italian opera and Neapolitan song, and his repertoire grew smaller as he grew older.

But he was always much bigger, in every sense, than his vocal cords. Unlike Domingo and Jose Carreras, Pavarotti fitted exactly the popular image of what an operatic tenor should look like, and how he should behave.

The Falstaffian figure weighing in at 25 stone by the time he reached middle age; the giant, white handkerchief, ostentatiously mopping sweat from the huge, beaming face; the legendary tales of mountainous plates of pasta being consumed before and after performances — in all these respects Pavarotti was an archetype made flesh.

And what flesh! Sniffy critics and stuffy cognoscenti despaired of this vast and ungainly figure attempting to portray energetic warriors such as Radames in Aida, or ardent romantic lovers such as Cavaradossi in Tosca. And it is true that whole productions had to be designed around Pavarotti’s lack of mobility or his primitive acting (especially when compared to Domingo’s superb dramatic skills).

Yet in an era when classical music struggled to make any impression at all on mass culture, Pavarotti became a huge household name, revered by countless fans who would never think of setting foot inside an opera house.

Part of that success was undoubtedly due to a ruthlessly exploitative marketing machine. The big man himself might have cultivated the impression (actually not so far from the truth) that he was a simple Italian peasant lad who had unwittingly stumbled on a pot of gold and couldn’t believe his luck. But gathered around him were some of the shrewdest marketing men in the business.

His biggest payday came in 1990 when ten milllion records were sold on the back of the Three Tenors at the Rome World Cup — an astonishing number in an era when the sales of many classical recordings, even by big names, struggled to get into four figures.

For me, however, it was his Hyde Park concert the following year that most clearly demonstrated Pavarotti’s unique quality: a platform charisma powerful enough to enthral thousands in the most unpropitious circumstances. On that never-to-be-forgotten night the heavens opened, and 100,000 people sitting in the open air (including Prince Charles and Diana) were drenched. The St John Ambulance even treated 193 concertgoers for hypothermia. Yet nobody dreamt of running for cover, or leaving early.

As he did throughout his 40-year career, this golden voice held multitudes spellbound. And when he hit the top B in Nessun dorma — which he held, in a stupendous display of lung power, for what seemed like 20 or 30 seconds — you could hear the cheer in Brighton.

This is the image of Pavarotti that should stay forever ingrained in the memory of millions. He was well into his fifties then, and rich beyond measure. Why don’t superstars ever quit when they are at the top?

In his final years his performances became increasingly erratic, until he disappeared from public life. Such coverage as he garnered since was usually about his private life, not his musical qualities — especially his decision to leave his wife of 35 years for a woman more than 30 years his junior.

The last time he sang his signature tune, Nessun dorma, it was transposed down several pitches to make the top notes possible. A scheduled farewell tour was postponed — and though we waited, the greatest performer of our age never returned to give his swansong.

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