Luciano Pavarotti – A Portrait (2010)

With his golden voice and fun-loving stage personality, the operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti achieved international fame that rivalled even that of his famous predecessor, Enrico Caruso. In some ways he even exceeded it, as he moved into the international musical mainstream, thanks to the combined influence of twentieth-century media channels, including films, television, and sound and video recordings. He was truly a giant on both the operatic and entertainment landscapes of his time. No-one did more to expand the audience for opera than Pavarotti – he reconnected an often elite art form with the popular masses through his own unabashed enthusiasm and his ability to communicate to vast crowds through the simple medium of his magnificent voice, allied to great music. When the history of opera in the twentieth century comes to be written, he will undoubtedly count among the very greatest of operatic personalities. And through his vast recorded legacy his fabulous voice lives on for future generations.