WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.459 Imagine the greatest cultural monument in classical 00:00:04.459 --> 00:00:06.860 music history. Okay, I'm picturing it. Right. 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:09.960 Now imagine that this towering monument to Hayar, 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:13.820 this absolute legend, can't actually read an 00:00:13.820 --> 00:00:17.239 orchestral score. Oh, wow. And imagine he lip 00:00:17.239 --> 00:00:20.160 syncs at the Olympics. And to top it all off, 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:22.359 imagine he originally just wanted to block soccer 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:25.019 balls for a living. I mean, it completely shatters 00:00:25.019 --> 00:00:27.359 the illusion, right? We have this image of the 00:00:27.530 --> 00:00:31.329 tortured, methodical, classical genius who was 00:00:31.329 --> 00:00:33.869 groomed for greatness from the cradle. Exactly. 00:00:34.250 --> 00:00:36.770 Welcome to this deep dive. Our mission today 00:00:36.770 --> 00:00:39.670 is to unpack the staggering, contradictory, and 00:00:39.670 --> 00:00:42.689 honestly truly larger -than -life biography of 00:00:42.689 --> 00:00:44.829 Luciano Pavarotti. It's a fascinating story. 00:00:45.070 --> 00:00:47.890 It really is. We are pulling from a comprehensive 00:00:47.890 --> 00:00:50.770 biographical profile to figure out how a kid 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:53.469 from a crowded two -room apartment in Italy grew 00:00:53.469 --> 00:00:55.670 up to become the biggest classical crossover 00:00:55.670 --> 00:00:58.049 star in human history. Right, and we're talking 00:00:58.049 --> 00:01:00.509 over a hundred million records sold here. Yeah. 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:03.579 But to understand the myth and the man, we have 00:01:03.579 --> 00:01:05.700 to start far away from the velvet -robed opera 00:01:05.700 --> 00:01:08.700 houses. Way off Broadway, so to speak. Exactly. 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:10.799 Okay, let's unpack this. We have to go back to 00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:14.640 1935, right? To the outskirts of Modena in northern 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.280 Italy. Yeah, and this was a remarkably humble 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:20.480 beginning. I mean, his father, Fernando, was 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:24.250 a baker. Okay. And his mother, Adele, She worked 00:01:24.250 --> 00:01:26.390 in a cigar factory. You mentioned the two -room 00:01:26.390 --> 00:01:28.870 apartment earlier. All four members of the family 00:01:28.870 --> 00:01:31.109 were squeezed in there. Wow. Just two rooms. 00:01:31.450 --> 00:01:34.209 Yeah. And it gets tougher. When World War II 00:01:34.209 --> 00:01:37.709 escalated around 1943, they were forced out of 00:01:37.709 --> 00:01:39.930 the city entirely. They had to rent a single 00:01:39.930 --> 00:01:42.609 room from a farmer out in the countryside. Which, 00:01:43.010 --> 00:01:45.349 interestingly enough, planted a lifelong obsession 00:01:45.349 --> 00:01:48.109 with farming for Pavarotti. It really did. But 00:01:48.109 --> 00:01:51.049 the music was always lingering in the background, 00:01:51.129 --> 00:01:53.540 mostly because of his dad. Right. Fernando actually 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:55.939 had a genuinely beautiful tenor voice right, 00:01:56.540 --> 00:01:59.560 but she had this Well, he had paralyzing stage 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:01.719 fright. Yeah. That anxiety kept his father from 00:02:01.719 --> 00:02:04.400 ever singing professionally. So young Luciano 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:06.459 absorbed music, mostly in the living room. Just 00:02:06.459 --> 00:02:09.620 listened to records. Exactly. Listening to his 00:02:09.620 --> 00:02:12.860 father's records of Enrico Caruso and Giuseppe 00:02:12.860 --> 00:02:15.780 Di Stefano, he would even go to Mario Lanza movies 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:18.599 and come home to passionately imitate him in 00:02:18.599 --> 00:02:20.479 the mirror. I mean, every kid does the mirror 00:02:20.479 --> 00:02:22.719 concert. That's true. But the funny thing is, 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:25.740 when he finished school, opera was nowhere on 00:02:25.740 --> 00:02:28.469 his radar. He wanted to be a professional football 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:31.490 goalkeeper. Right. Soccer was the dream. Yeah. 00:02:31.849 --> 00:02:34.449 But his mother, playing the classic pragmatic 00:02:34.449 --> 00:02:37.650 parent, stepped in and basically told him he 00:02:37.650 --> 00:02:40.050 needed a real job. She pushed him into training 00:02:40.050 --> 00:02:42.669 as a teacher. And he actually taught elementary 00:02:42.669 --> 00:02:45.650 school for two years. Wait, really? Two years? 00:02:45.710 --> 00:02:47.949 Two full years. Think about that for a second. 00:02:48.270 --> 00:02:50.729 The man who would eventually sing for half a 00:02:50.729 --> 00:02:53.509 million people in Central Park spent two years 00:02:53.509 --> 00:02:55.289 trying to get seven -year -olds to pay attention 00:02:55.289 --> 00:02:57.870 in a classroom. It's a crazy image. It really 00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:01.050 is. But eventually, the pull of music won out. 00:03:01.409 --> 00:03:04.349 He started studying seriously at 19 with a teacher 00:03:04.349 --> 00:03:07.389 named Rigo Pola, who recognized his raw talent 00:03:07.389 --> 00:03:09.949 and actually taught him for free. That's incredible. 00:03:10.189 --> 00:03:14.409 Yeah. And the major catalyst hit in 1955. Pavarotti 00:03:14.409 --> 00:03:17.229 and his father were both singing in a local male 00:03:17.229 --> 00:03:20.330 choir, the Chorale Rossini. They traveled to 00:03:20.330 --> 00:03:23.069 this international festival in Wales. The Eisteddfod 00:03:23.069 --> 00:03:25.729 Festival, right? Right. And they took first prize. 00:03:26.450 --> 00:03:28.650 Pirati later called it the most important experience 00:03:28.650 --> 00:03:30.789 of his life. Because it gave him the psychological 00:03:30.789 --> 00:03:33.469 permission to pursue this professionally. Exactly. 00:03:33.689 --> 00:03:36.650 But the transition wasn't, you know, instantaneous. 00:03:36.729 --> 00:03:39.150 He was still selling insurance on the side, doing 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:41.949 these small unpaid recitals. And this is where 00:03:41.949 --> 00:03:45.090 he hit a massive physical and psychological wall. 00:03:45.569 --> 00:03:47.810 Nodule. Yeah. He developed a nodule on his vocal 00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:50.270 cords. Right. So he has this concert in Ferrara, 00:03:50.409 --> 00:03:52.590 which he later describes as disastrous. Yeah. 00:03:52.629 --> 00:03:55.629 And he makes a hard final decision. He's going 00:03:55.629 --> 00:03:57.400 to... Quit singing entirely. He's totally done. 00:03:57.460 --> 00:03:59.780 Throwing in the towel. Yeah. But, and this is 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:01.979 what's wild. When he makes that absolute decision 00:04:01.979 --> 00:04:05.939 to walk away, the nodule disappears. It's fascinating. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:07.979 I'm stuck on this nodule thing though. If it's 00:04:07.979 --> 00:04:10.520 a physical, physiological lump on his vocal cords. 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:13.539 How does simply deciding to change careers make 00:04:13.539 --> 00:04:16.500 a physical mass vanish? Well, to understand that, 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:18.420 you really have to look at the mechanics of the 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:22.180 human voice. The vocal cords are incredibly delicate 00:04:22.180 --> 00:04:25.480 mucus membranes. OK. A nodule isn't a disease. 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:29.240 It's essentially a callus or a blister caused 00:04:29.240 --> 00:04:32.120 by intense friction. Oh, I see. So when you are 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:35.079 under severe psychological stress, like, say, 00:04:35.180 --> 00:04:36.980 carrying the weight of your father's unfulfilled 00:04:36.980 --> 00:04:39.939 ambitions and this terrifying fear of failure, 00:04:40.509 --> 00:04:43.810 your body physically reacts. It tenses up. Right. 00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:45.970 You clench the muscles in your neck. The false 00:04:45.970 --> 00:04:48.769 vocal folds actually compress. So his anxiety 00:04:48.769 --> 00:04:50.790 was literally strangling his own instrument. 00:04:51.050 --> 00:04:53.829 Precisely. Every time he sang, he was forcing 00:04:53.829 --> 00:04:56.529 air through a rigidly tense, tightened throat. 00:04:56.910 --> 00:04:59.009 That created the massive friction that caused 00:04:59.009 --> 00:05:02.050 the nodule to form. Wow. The moment he truly 00:05:02.050 --> 00:05:04.069 accepted that he was walking away, the moment 00:05:04.069 --> 00:05:06.350 he let go of that desperate need to succeed, 00:05:06.939 --> 00:05:09.680 His entire central nervous system just relaxed. 00:05:09.819 --> 00:05:11.980 The muscles unclenched. Exactly. The muscles 00:05:11.980 --> 00:05:13.959 in his neck unclenched and the friction stopped. 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:16.259 The physiological block evaporated because the 00:05:16.259 --> 00:05:19.480 psychological block evaporated. That is wild. 00:05:19.779 --> 00:05:22.579 In his own autobiography, he actually noted that 00:05:22.579 --> 00:05:25.560 this exact moment of surrender was when all his 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:27.819 years of technical training finally fused with 00:05:27.819 --> 00:05:30.839 his natural voice. It's like. Sometimes the sheer 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.779 panic of trying to achieve a goal is the very 00:05:33.779 --> 00:05:36.360 mechanism preventing you from reaching it. Absolutely. 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:39.240 So he found his voice by literally releasing 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:42.160 his grip on it. But, you know, having the voice 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:44.459 and getting the world to hear it are two completely 00:05:44.459 --> 00:05:47.000 different games. Oh, definitely. And the way 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.980 he actually broke onto the global stage is just 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:53.360 pure bizarre serendipity. It all hinged on his 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:55.339 height. It really is one of the great accidents 00:05:55.339 --> 00:05:58.040 in classical music history. Tell me about 1965. 00:05:58.439 --> 00:06:02.300 Right. In 1965, the legendary soprano Joan Sutherland 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:05.759 was organizing a massive tour of Australia, and 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:08.529 she needed a tenor. But because she was a very 00:06:08.529 --> 00:06:11.110 tall woman for a soprano, stage optics were a 00:06:11.110 --> 00:06:13.269 major concern for her. She couldn't have a tenor 00:06:13.269 --> 00:06:15.569 who looked, you know, tiny standing next to her 00:06:15.569 --> 00:06:18.269 during a passionate love scene. So she sees Pavarotti 00:06:18.269 --> 00:06:20.649 filling in for a sick tenor in Miami. He's this 00:06:20.649 --> 00:06:23.490 huge, towering guy with a massive voice. Yeah, 00:06:23.490 --> 00:06:26.189 he fits the physical bill perfectly. He gets 00:06:26.189 --> 00:06:29.569 the job mostly for his stature and spends two 00:06:29.569 --> 00:06:32.629 grueling months singing 40 performances. Wow, 00:06:32.850 --> 00:06:35.509 it's a lot. It is. But Joan Sutherland provided 00:06:35.509 --> 00:06:38.550 something far more than just exposure on that 00:06:38.550 --> 00:06:41.050 tour. She taught him how to breathe. Okay, let's 00:06:41.050 --> 00:06:44.769 unpack that. Because to someone who just sings 00:06:44.769 --> 00:06:47.730 in the shower, learning to breathe sounds ridiculous. 00:06:47.889 --> 00:06:50.220 We all know how to breathe. What exactly was 00:06:50.220 --> 00:06:52.899 she teaching him? Well, operatic singing requires 00:06:52.899 --> 00:06:55.899 a specific mechanism called a pogio, which basically 00:06:55.899 --> 00:06:59.279 means to lean. To lean? Yeah. If you just take 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:01.439 a deep breath into your chest and try to belt 00:07:01.439 --> 00:07:04.439 out an aria, the immense air pressure will blow 00:07:04.439 --> 00:07:07.079 out your vocal cords in about 10 minutes. Ouch. 00:07:07.740 --> 00:07:10.319 Sutherland taught Pavarotti how to isolate and 00:07:10.319 --> 00:07:12.620 use his diaphragm and his abdominal muscles to 00:07:12.620 --> 00:07:14.759 support the column of air from the bottom up. 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:16.899 Oh, so it's like building a shock absorber in 00:07:16.899 --> 00:07:18.519 your stomach so the pressure doesn't destroy 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:20.930 your throat. That is the perfect way to visualize 00:07:20.930 --> 00:07:23.230 it. Sutherland would literally have him place 00:07:23.230 --> 00:07:25.629 his hands on her stomach while she sang. Yeah, 00:07:25.629 --> 00:07:28.910 so he could physically feel how her rustles engaged 00:07:28.910 --> 00:07:31.329 to control the release of hair. That's amazing. 00:07:31.589 --> 00:07:34.290 Without that specific technical foundation, his 00:07:34.290 --> 00:07:36.730 natural talent would have just burned out. He 00:07:36.730 --> 00:07:38.649 never would have developed the athletic stamina 00:07:38.649 --> 00:07:41.079 required for the rest of his career. which leads 00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:44.939 directly to his absolute coronation in 1972 at 00:07:44.939 --> 00:07:47.220 the New York Met. The famous performance. Right. 00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:49.600 He's singing in Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:53.819 and he hits nine high C's in the signature aria. 00:07:54.519 --> 00:07:57.699 The crowd absolutely loses its mind. He gets 00:07:57.699 --> 00:08:01.120 17 curtain calls. 17. 17. And for anyone who 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:03.279 doesn't listen to opera, we need to explain why 00:08:03.279 --> 00:08:07.220 a high C is such a big deal. It's huge. A male 00:08:07.220 --> 00:08:09.860 tenor, a high C requires stretching the vocal 00:08:09.860 --> 00:08:13.079 cords incredibly thin while simultaneously pumping 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:15.500 a massive amount of concentrated air pressure 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:18.120 behind them to create acoustic resonance. Right. 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.860 It is the absolute upper limit of the human male 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:24.100 voice's chest register. If your technique wavers 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:27.220 by even a millimeter, the note cracks. And everyone 00:08:27.220 --> 00:08:29.500 hears it. Everyone in the auditorium hears it. 00:08:29.699 --> 00:08:32.500 It's the equivalent of a gymnast executing a 00:08:32.500 --> 00:08:35.639 quadruple backflip on a balance beam. And he 00:08:35.639 --> 00:08:38.500 does it nine times in a row. It's sheer athletic 00:08:38.500 --> 00:08:41.419 dominance. It really is. And it officially earns 00:08:41.419 --> 00:08:44.039 him the title King of the High Seas. But the 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:48.000 funny thing is, as his fame skyrockets, his stage 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.279 fright, that same anxiety his father had, never 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:53.679 actually leaves him. No, it stayed with him. 00:08:54.179 --> 00:08:57.440 Yeah. Just a year later, in 1973, he's doing 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:00.519 a recital in Missouri. And he introduces his 00:09:00.519 --> 00:09:04.460 legendary prop. The massive white handkerchief. 00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:06.899 And people often assume this was some calculated, 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:09.679 brilliant piece of branding by a diva who knew 00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:12.000 how to market himself. Right. You picture a PR 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:13.919 team sitting in a boardroom saying, give him 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.039 a white silk handkerchief. It screams high culture. 00:09:16.179 --> 00:09:18.519 Exactly. But according to his own managers, it 00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:20.320 was just the safety blanket of a nervous guy 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:22.600 with the sniffles. Just a guy with a cold. Yeah. 00:09:22.679 --> 00:09:25.120 He had a lingering cold, and he freely admitted 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:26.980 he was just terribly awkward and didn't know 00:09:26.980 --> 00:09:28.620 what to do with his hands while standing alone 00:09:28.620 --> 00:09:30.740 on the stage without a costume. But think about 00:09:30.740 --> 00:09:33.370 why that resonated. so deeply with audiences. 00:09:34.350 --> 00:09:36.809 That humanizing detail is the very mechanism 00:09:36.809 --> 00:09:39.769 that made massive non -opera audiences feel safe 00:09:39.769 --> 00:09:42.929 with him. When you watched Pavarotti, you weren't 00:09:42.929 --> 00:09:45.529 looking at an untouchable marble deity of high 00:09:45.529 --> 00:09:48.029 culture. Right, he wasn't a statue. No, you saw 00:09:48.029 --> 00:09:51.169 a towering, profusely sweating, visibly nervous 00:09:51.169 --> 00:09:54.750 man clutching a handkerchief for dear life. That 00:09:54.750 --> 00:09:57.409 vulnerability paired with this superhuman booming 00:09:57.409 --> 00:10:01.490 voice completely short -circuited the usual elitism 00:10:01.490 --> 00:10:03.909 of classical music. It absolutely did. Which 00:10:03.909 --> 00:10:06.690 is the perfect bridge to 1990. We've traced his 00:10:06.690 --> 00:10:09.690 rise to the top of the elite opera world La Scala, 00:10:09.809 --> 00:10:12.679 The Met. But 1990 is when the classical singer 00:10:12.679 --> 00:10:16.019 becomes a literal global pop star. The FIFA World 00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:19.320 Cup in Italy. Yes. The BBC decides to use Pavarotti's 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:22.080 recording of Puccini's Aria in a Sundorma as 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:24.340 their tournament theme song. It's crazy, right? 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:27.879 Suddenly, an aria from the 1920s is the soundtrack 00:10:27.879 --> 00:10:29.620 to the biggest sporting event on the planet. 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:31.799 It was a brilliant move. And the momentum of 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:33.820 that leads to the eve of the World Cup final 00:10:33.820 --> 00:10:36.240 at the ancient baths of Caracalla in Rome. The 00:10:36.240 --> 00:10:39.779 very first three tenors concert. Exactly. Pavarotti, 00:10:39.899 --> 00:10:42.240 Placido, Domingo and Jose Carreras with Zubin 00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:45.039 Mehta conducting. That single recording becomes 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:47.919 the best -selling classical album of all time. 00:10:48.019 --> 00:10:50.799 Of all time. So what's vital here is understanding 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:54.340 why that specific song worked. Well, Pavarotti 00:10:54.340 --> 00:10:56.679 was a master of bel canto singing. Okay, what 00:10:56.679 --> 00:10:59.179 does that mean exactly? The term literally translates 00:10:59.179 --> 00:11:02.980 to beautiful singing. It's a style that prioritizes 00:11:02.980 --> 00:11:07.360 a pure, smooth, soaring tone over like heavy, 00:11:07.500 --> 00:11:10.440 dramatic shouting. Ah, got it. So when he sang 00:11:10.440 --> 00:11:13.740 Nessun Dorma, he delivered the raw emotion, the 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:16.919 soaring triumph, the deep sorrow with such clarity 00:11:16.919 --> 00:11:19.360 that it became a universal language. You didn't 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:21.399 need to speak Italian or hold a music degree 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:23.620 to feel the climax of of that song in your chest. 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:26.399 Exactly. And the audience rewarded him with pop 00:11:26.399 --> 00:11:29.279 star numbers. We're talking 150 ,000 people in 00:11:29.279 --> 00:11:31.840 London's Hyde Park, 300 ,000 at the Eiffel Tower. 00:11:32.139 --> 00:11:35.740 Huge numbers. And in June 1993, he sang for over 00:11:35.740 --> 00:11:37.919 half a million people on the Great Lawn of New 00:11:37.919 --> 00:11:40.200 York Central Park. I mean, it's like classical 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:42.379 Woodstock. It really was. He's hanging out on 00:11:42.379 --> 00:11:44.399 Saturday Night Live. He's collaborating with 00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:49.340 Bono and U2 on Miss Sarajevo. Did he lower the 00:11:49.340 --> 00:11:51.360 standards of classical music to make it pop? 00:11:51.610 --> 00:11:54.809 Or did he elevate pop audiences to appreciate 00:11:54.809 --> 00:11:57.129 classical music? If we connect this to the bigger 00:11:57.129 --> 00:11:59.629 picture, it was the ultimate democratization 00:11:59.629 --> 00:12:02.350 of art. How so? He stripped away the velvet -rope 00:12:02.350 --> 00:12:05.190 elitism of the opera house. He bypassed the centuries 00:12:05.190 --> 00:12:07.929 -old snobbery of the genre and trusted the everyday 00:12:07.929 --> 00:12:10.169 public to appreciate the complexity of the human 00:12:10.169 --> 00:12:13.350 voice. And they did. But anytime someone gets 00:12:13.350 --> 00:12:16.120 that big... the machinery required to keep them 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:18.740 moving becomes incredibly heavy. The bigger the 00:12:18.740 --> 00:12:21.419 star, the larger the shadow. And Pavarotti cast 00:12:21.419 --> 00:12:24.360 a massive shadow. Full of contradictions. Alongside 00:12:24.360 --> 00:12:26.460 the title King of the High Seas, he earned a 00:12:26.460 --> 00:12:28.720 much less flattering nickname from theater directors. 00:12:29.019 --> 00:12:31.519 The King of Cancellations. Yeah. His unreliability 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:34.250 became legendary in the industry. By 1989, things 00:12:34.250 --> 00:12:36.110 hit a breaking point with the Lyric Opera of 00:12:36.110 --> 00:12:38.669 Chicago. Right. The general director, Artis Krainik, 00:12:38.809 --> 00:12:41.250 took the unprecedented step of banning him for 00:12:41.250 --> 00:12:43.509 life. Over an eight -year period, he had canceled 00:12:43.509 --> 00:12:46.950 26 out of 41 scheduled appearances. That's more 00:12:46.950 --> 00:12:50.370 than half. Imagine being at your job, and you 00:12:50.370 --> 00:12:53.629 just don't show up for 26 out of your next 41 00:12:53.629 --> 00:12:56.830 meetings. You'd be fired by Tuesday. Oh, absolutely. 00:12:57.419 --> 00:13:00.740 He cited sciatic nerve pain, but the chaos it 00:13:00.740 --> 00:13:02.879 caused for these opera houses, which planned 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:06.179 their seasons years in advance, was just catastrophic. 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:08.440 And the drama didn't stop at scheduling either. 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:12.080 Right. His former manager, Herbert Breslin, eventually 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:14.200 wrote a bitter tell -all book called The King 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:17.200 and I. He openly attacked Pavarotti's work ethic 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:20.159 and dropped a total bombshell. Caporati couldn't 00:13:20.159 --> 00:13:22.740 read an orchestral score. Which sounds completely 00:13:22.740 --> 00:13:25.100 impossible to the average listener. I mean, how 00:13:25.100 --> 00:13:27.940 do you perform a three -hour opera with a 60 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:30.259 -piece orchestra if you can't read the sheet 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:32.360 music on the conductor's stand? Exactly. It's 00:13:32.360 --> 00:13:34.399 like an actor starring in a two -hour Shakespeare 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:36.779 play in a foreign language they don't speak, 00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:38.860 and they learn the entire thing by just listening 00:13:38.860 --> 00:13:41.120 to an audiobook. How does the mechanism of that 00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:43.059 actually work? What's fascinating here is that 00:13:43.059 --> 00:13:46.440 it required agonizing rote repetition. Rote repetition. 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:50.870 Yeah. Pavarotti would hire a pianist, basically 00:13:50.870 --> 00:13:54.149 a repeteer, to sit with him for hours pounding 00:13:54.149 --> 00:13:56.669 out his specific melody line on the piano. Oh, 00:13:56.669 --> 00:13:58.870 wow. He would learn the intervals, the entrances, 00:13:59.009 --> 00:14:01.450 and the timing entirely by ear and muscle memory. 00:14:01.570 --> 00:14:04.529 That's incredible. He relied heavily on visual 00:14:04.529 --> 00:14:07.350 cues from the conductor and his own supernatural 00:14:07.350 --> 00:14:10.509 sense of relative pitch. It's a fascinating paradox. 00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:14.360 His inability to read the... dots on the page, 00:14:14.779 --> 00:14:17.179 forced him to internalize the music so deeply 00:14:17.179 --> 00:14:20.059 in his body that it sounded more natural than 00:14:20.059 --> 00:14:21.980 singers who were just staring at sheet music. 00:14:22.139 --> 00:14:24.679 And that's exactly why conductors tolerated the 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:27.039 cancellations. Because the payoff was so good. 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:30.120 Exactly. The sheer once -in -a -century quality 00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:32.700 of the voice combined with this deeply internalized 00:14:32.700 --> 00:14:35.120 musicality meant the juice was always worth the 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:37.340 squeeze. But the controversies just kept piling 00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:39.620 up. He was pursued by the Italian government 00:14:39.620 --> 00:14:42.100 for claiming residency in the tax haven of Monaco. 00:14:42.139 --> 00:14:44.809 Right. He eventually agreed to pay over $7 .6 00:14:44.809 --> 00:14:48.490 million in back taxes. And then there's the final 00:14:48.490 --> 00:14:51.610 highly publicized moment of his career, the 2006 00:14:51.610 --> 00:14:54.769 Torino Winter Olympics. He comes out, sings this 00:14:54.769 --> 00:14:58.090 in Dorma one last time, the crowd goes wild, 00:14:58.549 --> 00:15:00.850 and it later comes out that the entire performance 00:15:00.850 --> 00:15:03.629 was lip synced. If you look at that solely on 00:15:03.629 --> 00:15:05.669 the searches, it feels like, you know, a Milli 00:15:05.669 --> 00:15:08.049 Vanilli scandal. Right. But you have to understand 00:15:08.049 --> 00:15:10.529 the physiological reality of that night. Let's 00:15:10.529 --> 00:15:12.269 break that down because the context completely 00:15:12.269 --> 00:15:14.669 flicks the narrative. It was February in Torino. 00:15:15.509 --> 00:15:17.870 The temperature in the stadium was sub -zero. 00:15:18.429 --> 00:15:22.059 Okay. Freezing. Right. If a singer inhales deeply 00:15:22.059 --> 00:15:24.759 in subzero weather, the freezing air violently 00:15:24.759 --> 00:15:28.080 dries out and shocks the vocal folds. It is physically 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:30.740 dangerous to sing opera in those conditions. 00:15:30.820 --> 00:15:33.360 And beyond that, Pavarotti was a 70 -year -old 00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:36.019 man who was secretly battling advanced pancreatic 00:15:36.019 --> 00:15:39.360 cancer. He was dying. He was. The director of 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:41.460 the Olympic ceremony later revealed that Pavarotti 00:15:41.460 --> 00:15:44.039 had repeatedly turned down the invitation because 00:15:44.039 --> 00:15:46.220 he knew his body couldn't handle the cold. Oh, 00:15:46.340 --> 00:15:48.480 so he didn't even want to do it initially. No, 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:50.649 they f— finally convinced him to pre -record 00:15:50.649 --> 00:15:53.850 the track in a warm studio weeks earlier. So 00:15:53.850 --> 00:15:56.169 yes, on the night of the ceremony, the orchestra 00:15:56.169 --> 00:15:58.950 pretended to play and he pretended to sing. But 00:15:58.950 --> 00:16:01.490 given the agonizing pain he was in. Exactly. 00:16:01.549 --> 00:16:03.330 The fact that he stood out there in the freezing 00:16:03.330 --> 00:16:06.350 cold just to give his country one last moment 00:16:06.350 --> 00:16:09.809 of transcendent beauty. Is it a scandal? It's 00:16:09.809 --> 00:16:12.450 a poignant, heartbreaking necessity. It changes 00:16:12.450 --> 00:16:15.509 the lens entirely. He knew his time was short 00:16:15.509 --> 00:16:17.970 and he weaponized whatever energy he had left. 00:16:18.220 --> 00:16:20.480 Which brings us to the final chapter of his life. 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:23.960 Is philanthropy. Right. If we look past the diva 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:26.399 behavior, the tax issues, and the canceled shows, 00:16:27.059 --> 00:16:29.639 we have to examine what Pavarotti actually did 00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:32.440 with the immense power and wealth he accumulated. 00:16:32.730 --> 00:16:35.850 And he was incredibly active in deploying his 00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:38.289 fame. He didn't just hoard his influence inside 00:16:38.289 --> 00:16:41.309 a lavish villa. He started annually hosting the 00:16:41.309 --> 00:16:43.509 Pavarotti and Friends charity concerts in his 00:16:43.509 --> 00:16:46.450 hometown of Modena. And the lineups were absolute 00:16:46.450 --> 00:16:48.710 cultural whiplash. Oh, totally. You know, this 00:16:48.710 --> 00:16:51.450 classical maestro singing on stage with the Spice 00:16:51.450 --> 00:16:55.350 Girls, Celine Dion, Belton John, and Meat Loaf. 00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:58.169 Meat Loaf and Pavarotti, it's wild. Right. Did 00:16:58.169 --> 00:17:00.529 this relentless charity work serve as a counterbalance 00:17:00.529 --> 00:17:02.909 to the diva behavior we just discussed? Well, 00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:05.069 this raises an important question about how we 00:17:05.069 --> 00:17:08.849 measure a legacy. He used these massive pop spectacles 00:17:08.849 --> 00:17:12.490 to raise unprecedented funds for refugees. He 00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:14.670 won the Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission 00:17:14.670 --> 00:17:17.509 for Refugees. Right. And Kofi Nan named him a 00:17:17.509 --> 00:17:20.190 United Nations messenger of peace. He saw the 00:17:20.190 --> 00:17:22.990 devastation of the war in Bosnia and personally 00:17:22.990 --> 00:17:25.190 financed and built a music center in the city 00:17:25.190 --> 00:17:27.490 of Mostar so children could have a sanctuary. 00:17:27.900 --> 00:17:30.140 And he worked closely with Princess Diana, too. 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:33.019 Exactly. To raise money to eliminate landmines 00:17:33.019 --> 00:17:35.940 worldwide. But when he passed away in 2007 from 00:17:35.940 --> 00:17:39.460 pancreatic cancer, he left behind an estate valued 00:17:39.460 --> 00:17:44.569 at nearly $474 million. A massive fortune. And 00:17:44.569 --> 00:17:46.690 naturally, because human beings are messy, there 00:17:46.690 --> 00:17:49.029 was drama at the end. He left two conflicting 00:17:49.029 --> 00:17:52.009 wills. Right. Which sparked an intense investigation 00:17:52.009 --> 00:17:54.809 and eventually a quiet settlement between his 00:17:54.809 --> 00:17:57.029 daughters from his first marriage and his second 00:17:57.029 --> 00:17:59.650 wife, Nicoletta. It's complicated. But looking 00:17:59.650 --> 00:18:02.150 at the massive footprint of his life, it's clear 00:18:02.150 --> 00:18:03.990 he understood something fundamental about his 00:18:03.990 --> 00:18:06.529 fame. He understood that his voice was a global 00:18:06.529 --> 00:18:09.880 currency. and he made the act of choice to spend 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:12.720 that currency to alleviate human suffering. He 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:15.000 brought warring factions of the music industry, 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:18.960 pop, rock, and opera together under one roof. 00:18:19.099 --> 00:18:22.359 For humanitarian causes, it proved that his crossover 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:24.900 appeal wasn't just like a cynical marketing ploy 00:18:24.900 --> 00:18:27.220 to sell records, it was a tool for mobilizing 00:18:27.220 --> 00:18:30.380 humanity. He used the spotlight of his voice 00:18:30.380 --> 00:18:33.079 to illuminate the darkest corners of the globe. 00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:35.960 He really did. We've traced an unbelievable arc 00:18:35.960 --> 00:18:38.730 today. From a kid in a crowded two -room apartment 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:41.849 who wanted to block soccer balls to a man who 00:18:41.849 --> 00:18:44.430 literally changed the frequency of global culture. 00:18:44.509 --> 00:18:47.250 It's a profound journey. We saw how the immense 00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:50.069 pressure of his father's state fright physically 00:18:50.069 --> 00:18:52.950 manifested as a nodule on his vocal cords and 00:18:52.950 --> 00:18:55.710 how the psychological release of giving up actually 00:18:55.710 --> 00:18:58.009 cured him. And how a tall frame got him a gig 00:18:58.009 --> 00:19:00.309 with Joan Sutherland. Right, who taught him the 00:19:00.309 --> 00:19:03.009 vital mechanics of diaphragmatic breathing, which 00:19:03.009 --> 00:19:05.589 gave him the physical armor to hit nine high 00:19:05.589 --> 00:19:07.910 C's at the Met. He took a nervous habit of clutching 00:19:07.910 --> 00:19:10.309 a handkerchief and inadvertently made it a symbol 00:19:10.309 --> 00:19:13.150 of approachability. He learned entire symphonies 00:19:13.150 --> 00:19:16.069 by ear because he couldn't read the page. He 00:19:16.069 --> 00:19:19.250 took the elitism out of the opera house and blasted 00:19:19.250 --> 00:19:21.990 it across Central Park and the World Cup, proving 00:19:21.990 --> 00:19:25.069 that high art truly belongs to everyone. He was 00:19:25.069 --> 00:19:27.630 imperfect, he was demanding, and he drove opera 00:19:27.630 --> 00:19:31.410 directors completely insane. But he built a bridge 00:19:31.410 --> 00:19:33.430 between worlds that most people thought could 00:19:33.430 --> 00:19:36.470 never touch. A lasting bridge. Which leaves us 00:19:36.470 --> 00:19:38.369 with a final thought for you to take away today. 00:19:39.190 --> 00:19:41.029 We talked at the beginning about how a monument 00:19:41.029 --> 00:19:43.869 isn't always carved from stone. Sometimes it's 00:19:43.869 --> 00:19:46.109 built out of paradox, out of a man sweating and 00:19:46.109 --> 00:19:48.190 clutching a handkerchief. Right. Think about 00:19:48.190 --> 00:19:50.410 the invisible barriers that still surround high 00:19:50.410 --> 00:19:53.470 culture today. If Pavarotti could use a football 00:19:53.470 --> 00:19:56.670 tournament to make a 1920s Italian aria the biggest 00:19:56.670 --> 00:19:59.660 pop song in the world. What piece of forgotten, 00:20:00.019 --> 00:20:02.619 complex, or elitist art is out there right now, 00:20:03.019 --> 00:20:05.000 just waiting for the right person to translate 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:07.619 its beauty for the rest of us? That is the ultimate 00:20:07.619 --> 00:20:10.119 question his legacy leaves behind. Until next 00:20:10.119 --> 00:20:11.500 time, keep diving deep.