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PAVAROTTI – Review – We Are Movie Geeks

Review

PAVAROTTI – Review

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Pavarotti performs at the People’s Assembly in Peking, China. Photo by Vittoriano Rastelli/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images.

In PAVAROTTI, director Ron Howard spotlights opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti, the most famous tenor of the past 50 years, so famous that even people who had never heard an opera knew his name.

Even if you don’t know anything about opera, you have probably heard of the Three Tenors – Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo. If you are an opera fan, you know Pavarotti as one the great voices, the best tenor of the second half the last century and beginning of this one. Ron Howard’s affectionate but honest documentary has something for both of those audiences.

Pavarotti was a rock star of an opera star, a pop culture celebrity whose fame reached beyond the rarefied world of opera, something that didn’t always please opera fans. Pavarotti not only sang on opera theater stages but performed in events promoted like rock concerts and taking place in sports stadiums, and even shared the stage with rock stars like Bono of U2.

Ironically, as the film points out, opera started as popular entertainment, and was still popular in rural Italy where Pavarotti grew up. With melodramatic, over-the-top stories, opera featured singers with voices so big they could fill theaters with sound without amplification, in the centuries before sound systems. And of course the singing had to be beautiful too. Pavarotti possessed a uniquely beautiful voice.

Director Ron Howard’s PAVAROTTI is about as well-crafted and entertaining a biographical documentary as one could ask for, hitting the highlights of the singer’s career, his strengths and failings, and telling his personal story. It is a warts-and-all documentary, that looks beneath the famous exterior but which still leaves the audience feeling like they have gained an understanding of the man and a sense of why he has was both a great artist and a beloved star.

Pavarotti had one of the best voices of the late 20th-early 21 centuries. On top of that, he had charisma by the ton, a true star in any era. .Born in the small Italian town of Modena, he grew up in the aftermath of WWII. The son of a baker who was an amateur tenor, Pavarotti was working as an elementary school teacher when he decided, encouraged by his mother, to pursue his dream and switched to opera. He became the “King of the High Cs,” then an international superstar, whose fame reached far beyond the world of opera.

Pavarotti had a golden voice and impressive technique but he had charm and a common touch along with all that talent. Pararotti not only had that voice that he called “a gift from God” but sang with great feeling, great expression, and was very much a performer who brought drama to his roles.

Footage of Pavarotti singing makes this point better than any scholar could, and the film is filled with wonderful, thrilling clips that might make a fan of anyone. Ron Howard has said he wasn’t particularly an opera fan when he started this project but the more he learned – and heard – the more he fell under Pavarotti’s spell like so many before. Howard takes us on that same journey, introducing the non-opera public to this unique man. Yet, opera fans who already know this great artist well will enjoy this journey as well.

Despite the wealth and fame, there were struggles with heartache, self-doubt and loneliness. The documentary features interviews with family and friends, including – notably – both his wives, Adua Veroni and Nicoletta Mantovani. Pavarotti’s three daughters with his first wife Adua Veroni talk about family life and moments with their famous father. Very much a people person, Pavarotti was noted for his warmth and his sense of humor and fun, which comes through particularly with his daughters.

Clips of interviews on television talk shows are shown as well as previously unseen home movie footage, helping create a well-rounded portrait. Ron Howard weaves all this material about the man and his music into a masterfully-constructed documentary, one that sweeps us up into its narrative of Pavarotti’s professional and personal life.

Much of that story is told through stirring, gorgeous performances, which generously dot the narrative. There is no narration, as none is needed – Pavarotti’s singing tells the story.

To Ron Howard’s credit, the documentary does not shy away from the scandals and controversies that were part of Pavarotti’s life but it treats those aspects fairly and factually. Mostly, it offers the audience a wealth of footage of Pavarotti singing, and uses that footage as a way to get to know the artist.

And what a glorious voice it is. The film features some of the best of his performances, with a particularly strong sampling of Pavarotti at his vocal peak, but including other strong examples of his later work. The clips illustrate Pavarotti’s power as an actor as he sang, conveying the emotion of the lyrics with remarkable depth. His stage presence and his expressive delivery have an electric vibrancy, thrilling us as we watch and listen.

Pavarotti embraced his peasant roots and set out to bring the beauty of opera to everyone around the world. The film includes interviews with Pavarotti himself and intimate moments with friends and family. Sequences with children are particularly touching.

Pavarotti’s place as a pop star as well as an opera star comes through especially in the sequences with Princess Diana, who was among his friends, and interviews with Bono talking about their unlikely collaboration. Interview footage with Placido Domingo, one of those famous “Three Tenors,” illustrates that worldwide phenomenon they became, as well as Pavarotti’s big heart in organizing the first concert, partly as a fundraiser and partly to bolster the spirits of Carreras as he recovered from cancer. Later in his career, Pavarotti turned his talents to helping others through charitable events, as he made a remarkable career commitment to charitable works.

It illustrates the singer’s open nature and generous, collaborative spirit. But when Pavarotti’s embrace of other musicians put him on stage with rock stars, there were critics among both fans and music experts. Certainly the rock stars themselves were both awed and intimidated to share the stage with such a talent.

PAVAROTTI is a marvelous documentary that strikes the perfect balance to please both opera-loving Pavarotti fans who know his work well and those who are new to opera and Pavarotti. It is an almost magical feat, but Ron Howard pulls it off. Pavarotti was not elitist and neither was his view of opera, and this entertaining, enlightening documentary delightfully captures that same joyful view of Pavarotti and his music.

PAVAROTTI opens Friday, June 21, at the HiPointe Backlot Theater.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars