Flashback

Remembering Pavarotti

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI WAS MY HERO long before I met him. I was singing over all of his CDS in my little bedroom at home in Rome, and I knew all the arias. Opera was in my blood, and I remember my father would sing around the house every morning. Before I got the part of the shepherd boy in Tosca, I had been in the Sistine Chapel choir and they chose me because they wanted a boy on stage rather than a mezzosoprano, which often happens in Rome.

When I did eventually meet Pavarotti [who was playing the painter, Cavaradossi, in Mauro Bolognini’s production], it was like meeting Batman or something – he was a superstar and you knew when he was in the house because you could smell it in the air. Yet at the same time he was actually very humble. He was very respectful of everyone he worked with, and of the work itself. He gave me a lot of advice, told me to study in order for my voice to develop in the right way because, when you are a boy, you go through a few years when you are like a snake shedding its skin.

Just after this production, he became a global superstar with

The Three Tenors. He had an incredible way of communicating opera, and he knew how to make it accessible to everyone – yet he never lost sight of its true art.

This Tosca was loved by the critics, and the first night was one of the greatest that Rome ever had in its calendar. This was down particularly to Daniel Oren, who is one of the greatest conductors of Tosca. One of the critics dubbed me ‘Il Pavarottino’ [little Pavarotti], and that was incredible for me. Pavarotti took me out on to the stage for the final bows and we held hands.

We never stopped holding hands, really, and we stayed in touch until his death in 2007 from cancer. When you are ill and you know your life is about to end, you would probably want to close the door and not see anyone. I might not have the guts to go out and still do my job – to try to make people happy. But Pavarotti did, because he knew he was born to do it. For him, it wasn’t about fame or money, it was about trying to give pleasure to as many people as possible.

The last time I saw him was like a scene from a movie. I was at his house and about to leave the room, and as I opened the door, a ray of light flooded in. ‘Mio campionissimo [my champion],’ he said. ‘You have something I cannot teach you and I want to tell you before you go. You have charisma.’ That was his gift to me – his saying that made me feel secure in what I was doing. Then I left for Washington, where I was playing Rodolfo in La Bohème, and that was when I heard that he passed away.

Now, I am playing Cavaradossi myself for the first time. I have had to wait 27 years to close this circle from where everything started – but I know that Luciano Pavarotti will be there, helping me from upstairs.

— Interview by Ben Lawrence

The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Tosca will be live in cinemas on 27 January (metopera.org)

It was like meeting Batman – he was a superstar

Above A 13-yearold Vittorio Grigòlo backstage with the great tenor Luciano Pavarotti, during the production of Tosca at Teatro dell’opera di Roma