perche un di nella reggia, m'hai sorriso

With the recent death of Pavarotti following a year in which so many other great singers have died it is starting to seem as if an entire generation is passing into history, the generation that had just retired or was edging off stage around the time I started my concert-going. As a result some of these people I knew only by recordings or a rare live performance. Pavarotti I heard live only once. He gave a recital in Boston in the late 1980s and it was already considered something of an event for him to do so. The Globe always had thorough and high-quality arts coverage, so in addition to the usual review there were some articles before and after, most of them commenting on the bond he had with the audience. There was an older black woman who survived cancer and felt that his recordings helped her to do so; she met with him after the recital and from the Globe report it sounded like a warm and, if the expression makes sense, very human meeting. The recital itself was not the singer at his best; even by then there was some bloom off the voice, and he had his music in front of him, which I have never seen at any other vocal recital. But I was still glad for a chance to hear his remarkable voice live and feel his charismatic presence. It’s too bad that in later years he became more clownish; I wonder if the magnitude of his natural gift was more than he could really bear. I remember Ms. S and I back in Boston joking that there was something morbid about our annual ticket purchases; some of them were definitely “see them while you can” shows. I heard Anna Russell once, in what was apparently her farewell tour, though of course if Anna Russell had announced a farewell tour everyone would have assumed it was a diva joke. She went through just about every one of her classic routines and gave us three hours. I was with someone who said, “Wow! She’s like the Bruce Springsteen of whatever it is she does!” And when Horowitz came to town I knew there was just not going to be another chance, so I didn't care how pricey the tickets were. He was a tiny, frail-looking man; I can still hear the thundering octaves at the end of the first half and then a very long intermission so he could lie down backstage. At some point the last person to hear Horowitz live will also pass into history. I doubt I will be that person, but I’m glad I had at least a glimpse of these remarkable performers; it’s like seeing a sketch or fragment and knowing that it gains significance from its connection with an artist’s whole body of work.