Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 24, 1992 TAG: 9202240025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: EX-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY CAMPBELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
PAVAROTTI STICKS WITH A WINNER
Superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti first appeared in PBS' "Live From Lincoln Center" in 1978. Monday, he'll be there again - in the series' 100th telecast.And, despite his years as a performer, he'll still have stage fright.
"I'm always scared to death," he says. "I'm MONDAY: "Live From Lincoln Center" airs at 8 p.m. on WBRA-Channel 15. scared of the music I am doing. There is this kind of deep respect, which goes very close to being scared."
According to John Goberman, creator and producer of the series, only a few programs have equaled Pavarotti's ratings - American Ballet Theater's "Swan Lake" starring Natalia Makarova, which was the third show, in 1976, Beverly Sills' 1980 farewell to singing and Danny Kaye with the Philharmonic in 1981.
Pavarotti will be making his 10th appearance in "Live From Lincoln Center," in a concert called "Pavarotti Plus!" The series first tried the format in 1986, when he shared the bill with eight other singers.
"The idea, I think, is very successful, and we should not try to change," the tenor says. "The idea is three or four stars and three or four newcomers who will become stars."
Of this year's guests, soprano June Anderson, mezzo-soprano Florence Quivar, baritone Sherrill Milnes and bass Ferruccio Furlanetto are better known than sopranos Kallen Esperian, Raina Kabaivanska and Francesca Pedaci, tenor Cesar Hernandez and Eduardo Muller, who'll conduct the New York City Opera Orchestra.
Pavarotti says he first worked with Muller in Milan and then the Pavarotti International Competition in Philadelphia. "He has done `Lucia' here with incredible success," he said. "I think he is a good talent, very young, not much on TV. I think he deserves to be."
Pavarotti is given tapes of his concerts, which he watches later. "There is always something you have to learn."
He still recalls the date of his first solo recital in 1978 at the Met - Feb. 12, "a very important date. My father was sick. We had a doubt he had cancer.
"The day after the recital he was supposed to go in the hospital to be operated. I say, `Maybe I don't see him anymore. Let me give him the great kick of his life.' He sang one number with me."
To Pavarotti's joy, his father's illness wasn't cancer, and "he is still here, in great shape, thank God. Every Saturday and Sunday he goes to the church to sing solos. He is a tenor with a fantastic voice.
"I think he has a better voice than me. The color of it is better than me. It is not an educated voice, but the sound is beautiful."
Pavarotti, a busy man, seems to work without letup. He has added another role to his repertory, Canio in "Pagliacci." He sang it, in concert, with the Philadelphia Orchestra - three times in Philadelphia and once at Carnegie Hall. Last year, he sang the title role in "Otello" for the first time, with the Chicago Symphony, in concert in Chicago and Carnegie Hall. He never intended to sing a staged "Otello."
"I am not sure now," he says. "do not know anything for the moment. I don't say I decided when, how and with whom. If the opportunity is coming very important, it can be I sing it in an opera house.
This season, Pavarotti sang at the Met's gala opening night and in "The Elixir of Love."
Next summer he'll record "Manon Lescaut" with soprano Mirella Freni and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra conducted by James Levine. And next season he'll sing in a new Met production of "Lucia di Lammermoor" opposite June Anderson and go with the company to Japan to sing in "Elixir."
Pavarotti speaks of all this while sitting at a desk in his apartment here, wearing a cashmere-and-silk Hermes scarf draped over his blue T-shirt. He picks up a long-term calendar and takes a look at coming engagements.
They extend into 1995.