Pavarotti-2019

[Steve Williams]

At the advice of my good friend and fellow member "mobiusman" my wife and I found a theater that was still showing this brilliant 2 hour documentary of the man and the legend, produced and directed by Ron Howard and his good friend Brian Grazer

I have to admit that we were glued to the screen as this was first class entertainment. It showed the maestro at his peak and during his very worst of times. Married with 3 daughters he had a very lengthy relationship with one of his students until she saw he was not going to leave his wife. Then he found the love of his life, a woman 34 years his junior whom the married. She became pregnant with twins (boy and girl) but a very abnormal pregnancy and the boy died but the girl survived. It encapsulates the entire life of this larger than life icon only to have him succumb to pancreatic cancer soon after his marriage. It shows his life where he embraced rock stars and had them perform with him. Most wonderful it shows the lasting friendship he had with Bono from U2 and how he got Bono to write a song about the war in Bosnia.

The documentary is all original film of his performances as well as interviews from all of those around him. He remained good friends with his first wife right up until his death

This is highly recommended if you are or even if you aren't a Pavarotti fan as Ron Howard hit a home run with this one.

I would bet this will be an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary. Not to be missed.Rated 98% on Rotten Tomatoes

 

[RogerD]

Very nice review Steve. I’ll have to look for the Blu ray or dvd. Thanks

 

[LenWhite]

This has been my NetFlix queue since it was reviewed on RT. A must see - looking forward to hearing his incredible tenor voice. And it's on DTS Master blu-ray. Hopefully it's released by Christmas - that would be a great present.

 

[astrotoy]

Can't wait. Thanks for the tip Steve.

I was lucky enough to see Pavarotti sing Rudolfo in La Boheme in the fall of 1967 at the San Francisco Opera, his official American debut. I was a first year grad student at Berkeley and another grad student gave me her ticket which she couldn't use. Of course I had no idea who he was at that time, but remember coming out quite impressed. He wasn't thin, but nothing like the gigantic person he later became. Interestingly his childhood friend from Modena, the great soprano Mirella Freni starred as Mimi. Later they recorded La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Tosca together in famous recordings for Decca/London in the mid-70's.

When I wrote my book about Decca in 2013-4, the recording engineers had many great stories I was able to capture about Pavarotti, who was a lifelong Decca artist.

Larry