By Barney Zwartz, Barry Divola and John Shand
OPERA Luciano Pavarotti
THE COMPLETE OPERA RECORDINGS (Decca)
Pavarotti as Manrico in Il Trovatore.Credit: Christian Steiner/Decca
★★★★★
Luciano Pavarotti was the most famous and adored opera tenor of the 20th century, with Caruso his only rival in reaching far beyond the rarefied world of opera into the popular imagination. Monumental in every way – his weight fluctuated between 115 and 160 kilograms, allegedly peaking at 180 – "Big Lucy" boasted a voice of astonishing power and sweetness, huge stage presence and a charisma and charm that helped him expand beyond opera.
Soprano Katia Ricciarelli called his voice "platinum", while his friend and rival Placido Domingo found it "divine". It was one of the few voices instantly recognisable at the first note: strong and pure throughout the range, but especially beautiful at the top. He was promoted as "King of the High Cs", which he demonstrated by reeling off an incredible nine in a row at the Metropolitan Opera.
What propelled him to superstardom beyond opera was the famous Three Tenors concert (with Domingo and Jose Carreras) in Rome to launch the 1990 soccer World Cup, where his effortlessly thrilling Nessun Dorma (from Puccini's Turandot) became his signature tune with its conclusion "vincero" ("I shall conquer").
And conquer he did. Eventually seen by a billion people, that concert became the biggest classical release of all time, with some 20 million sales. Pavarotti also made a number of cross-over albums for charity with such artists as Sting, Bob Geldof, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Bono, Celine Dion, the Spice Girls, Mariah Carey, Ricky Martin and Stevie Wonder.
I saw Pavarotti only twice. In 1981 I queued at 5am to get a standing room ticket for Verdi's Masked Ball at Covent Garden, and in 2005 I heard him at the Melbourne Recital Centre on his "farewell tour". The first was stupendous; the second a travesty, as the 70-year-old singer – no glimmer of his former glory – had to rest for a bar before essaying high notes in a strangled squawk. Even so, he still had massive star quality, sitting behind a piano with his trademark huge handkerchief.
Now, to honour the 10th anniversary of his death, Decca has released his entire recorded opera output on 95 CDs and six Blu-rays. There are 34 separate operas, six of them twice and two of them – Verdi's Rigoletto and La Traviata – in three different versions, plus requiems by Berlioz, Verdi, Donizetti and Rossini. It is a fabulous legacy.
Many of these recordings remain among the most admired versions decades later, particularly those with long-term collaborators Joan Sutherland and Mirella Freni, the latter a childhood friend from the same northern Italian town of Modena. He made stupendous Puccini recordings with Freni (La Boheme, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut), while fully seven of his sets with Sutherland make Penguin's 1000 Finest Classical Recordings. These are Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda and I Puritani, Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, La fille du regiment (with the nine high Cs), Lucia di Lammermoor and Maria Stuarda, and Puccini's Turandot.
His debut recording, another Boheme from Modena in 1961 is there, along with two EMI sets, Mascagni's L'Amico Fritz and a fine Don Carlo (Verdi).
Often lazy and barely able to read music, Pavarotti was accused of relying on his voice, but he could sing with great intelligence and sensitivity and convey emotion wonderfully. Just listen to his anguished Otello in the Verdi opera or the tenderness of his Alfredo in Parigi o cara from La Traviata.
The only disappointment is the notes, with far too many errors. For example, Luisa Miller is, according to the CD spine, Maria Stuarda, while Der Rosenkavalier apparently has no orchestra or conductor (Vienna Philharmonic and Georg Solti) and Nemorino (Pavarotti's role) is simply absent from L'elisir d'amore.
A minor cavil, however, in a set that contains some of the finest opera recordings ever made. Pavarotti surely brought the beauty of opera to the notice of more people than anyone in history. In his own words, posted on his website after his death in 2007: "I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to."
BARNEY ZWARTZ
ARABIC/JAZZ Anouar Brahem
BLUE MAQAMS (ECM)
★★★★★
Is this the year's finest release? It is two decades since the great Tunisian oud player Anouar Brahem last collaborated with jazz musicians on the timeless Thimar. That was with John Surman and Dave Holland, and now Holland returns to the fold in company with drummer Jack DeJohnette and British pianist Django Bates. Inevitably Brahem's compositions remain rooted in Arabic classical music, but compared with Thimar the nine pieces here transcend idiom to a greater degree, allowing the three jazz players more harmonic, rhythmic and textural room to move and interpret. Just on half a century after they first played together with Miles Davis Holland and DeJohnette prove the perfect rhythm section for the project, bringing superlative elasticity to bear. The surprise packet is Bates, something of a maverick who can solo with panache, but who also understood that the piano could easily smother Brahem's work, and therefore often holds back to doing little more than casting auras of harmony around the oud. Brahem's playing is as shrouded in mystery as ever, drawing you into worlds of twilight beauty and muted sadness. JOHN SHAND
ROCK The Rolling Stones
ON AIR (Polydor/Universal)
★★★½☆
Yes, they're legends, but let's face it, the Stones haven't made a decent studio album in more than three decades. No wonder they're looking back. Last year's Blue & Lonesome found them slapping down blues covers in a three-day recording stint. On Air goes back to a time when that's about all they knew. It collects live recordings from BBC programs between 1963 and 1965, when they were still totally in the thrall of US blues, R&B and early rock and roll. Naturally, there's a Bo Diddley cover and three from their hero Chuck Berry, all played with a bright-eyed fervour and big-lipped sneer. Although sound quality varies, live takes on their early originals reveal that there was little studio trickery in the recorded versions: that riff from (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction is just as fat and fuzzy; the spiky jangle of The Last Time is just as insistent. It's All Over Now is bookended with the high-pitched squeals of teenage girls, but with the sinewy interplay between the guitars of Keith and Brian, and Mick's delivery coming from somewhere around the pelvis, you may not need that encouragement to do some squealing of your own. BARRY DIVOLA