CultureGeek

MusicGeek: RIP Luciano Pavarotti, Voice of Heaven

Luciano Pavarotti is singing with the angels today.

As everyone in the free world knows if they've opened a browser today, Pavarotti succumbed to that great thief, cancer, early this morning in his home in Italy. Considered possibly the finest tenor in recent memory, Pavarotti was also well-known for bringing opera and classical music into the mainstream, performing with such musicians as U2 and James Brown.

Pavarotti was born in Modena, Italy to a baker and a factory worker. The family of four lived in a two-room apartment. His father had a fine singing voice, but never performed due to stage fright. Pavarotti began singing with a small church choir at age 9.

He began studying seriously at age 19 with a Modena teacher who donated his services after discovering the boy had perfect pitch, a rare talent that allows a singer to find a note without any reference. He was known as the "king of high C's."

Pavarotti made his opera debut in LA BOHEME in 1961. His American debut came four years later in LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR in Miami, as an understudy. His star rose quickly, and he became the international voice of opera after his 1990 rendition of "Nessun Dorma" from TURANDOT by Puccini.

He was one of the famous Three Tenors, along with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. The recording of their concert held at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome is the biggest-selling classical record of all time.

But it was his popularity among those who don't really pay attention to opera that made him a household name. He is, to date, the only opera singer to perform on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, appearing in 1998 with Vanessa Williams. He sang with U2 in the 1995 song "Miss Sarajevo." He even sang with the Spice Girls, but we forgive him. He found Bryan Adams' "All For Love" musically fascinating (sung with Sting and Rod Stewart) and joined in, including it on a charity album.

He hosted an annual charity concert titled "Pavarotti and Friends," raising money for victims in Bosnia, Guatemala, Kosovo and Iraq. He established the Pavarotti Music Center in Bosnia to offer Bosnian artists the opportunity to develop their skills, and the city of Sarajevo named him an honorary citizen.

He always stepped in for disasters that may not have made a telethon in America, such as a benefit concert for a 1988 earthquake that killed 25,000 in northern Armenia. He was named the U.N. Messenger of Peace in 1998 and the Nansen Medal from the U.N. Commission for Refugees for his work on HIV/AIDS, child rights, refugees and poverty. He personally raised more than $1.5 million through concerts and volunteer work.

Pavarotti holds two Guinness World Records: for the most curtain calls (1965) and the best-selling classical album. His final role was in Puccini's TOSCA, performed at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2004. His final performance was his signature piece, "Nessun Dorma," sung at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy. His 40-city farewell tour never took place.

In response to his death, the Vienna State Opera and Salzburg Festival Hall are flying black flags. But I think the London Royal Opera House said it best: "He was one of those rare artists who affected the lives of people across the globe, in all walks of life. Through his countless broadcasts, recordings and concerts, he introduced the extraordinary power of opera to people who perhaps would never have encountered opera and classical singing. In doing so, he enriched their lives. That will be his legacy."

I leave you with a small piece of this man's brilliance. His rendition of Schubert's "Ave Maria" is, to me, the finest confluence of composition and performance in music. It clearly shows, better than my words, what beauty has passed from our world today.

This blog shall remain silent for the rest of the day in respect for Maestro.

MusicGeek: In Which I Out Myself as a Geek (duh)

And not only will I out myself as a geek in yet another genre, but I will introduce you to someone much funnier than I am.

Yes, I am a classical-music geek. It's not my fault. It's my mother's fault. She is a concert pianist, an accomplished musician who has performed at Tanglewood and Carnegie, directed a choir that performed before Queen Elizabeth II and President Bush (the first one).

Me? My musical career began with "Rama lama lama ka dingity ding dee dong" and ended with a Streisand torch song in an unnamed bar in Memphis. Still, it's how I survived college. Before that, though, were the years of music throughout my childhood. Like I had a choice. I learned to read music before I learned to READ, studying piano, voice and cello.

Note the last one. Cello.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1731941/

I was already rolling before Rob Paravonian got two minutes into his spiel, because I remember being a child cellist who had to bring her cello to school on the bus. Which took up an ENTIRE SEAT. Smith Avenue Elementary School stood at the top of a hill the size of Everest, and the buses dropped us off at the bottom of the hill. Then all the kids stampeded up the nine-hundred steps to the school, leaving me behind in their wake.

Up a step. Drag cello up a step. Up a step. Drag cello up a step.

Oh yeah. I was popular.

Still, my love of classical music has survived to this day, and I was famous for playing orchestral music at my desk until my co-workers mocked me one too many times for "Elizabeth's funeral dirges." (Mozart's Requiem is NOT a dirge. Thank you.)

This guy nearly killed me. Click it. You'll be dying too. Um, in a good way. Then check out his site at paravonian.com.

P.S. Thanks to reader Jay Stewart for the link!

WikiFact: The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Wikipedia Fact of the Day: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

If you have kids, you've heard this song. Timon the meerkat and Pumbaa the warthog sing it as they walk through the jungle during the Disney megahit THE LION KING: "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...."

When it comes on the radio - as it does frequently - it is an automatic earworm, the song you can't get out of your head. Just mentioning it in the newsroom today has three or four people humming it, myself included.

According to our friends at Wikipedia, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" began life as "Mbube," Zulu for "lion," written by Solomon Linda of South Africa and performed by his group, The Evening Birds, in 1939. A record company paid Linda less than $2 for the tune, and although "Mbube" became a South African hit, all the money went to the record company. In fact, the style of African a capella music was called Mbube for some time in its honor.

In 1952, a folk group called The Weavers performed it after Pete Seeger heard it. The translation suffered - "uyimbube," which means "you're a lion," became "wimoweh." The song was credited to Linda, but of course he got little money from the top-20 hit. Pete Seeger later said he wished he had made sure Linda got a songwriter's contract, not just a small check.

Many other covers followed, but the most famous is The Tokens' 1961 version featuring lead singer Jay Siegel's falsetto and a moonlighting opera singer doing the high notes. It rose to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and everyone still plays it when they feel like rocking out behind the wheel while stuck in traffic. Later, Robert John covered it in 1972, and that version rose to number three on the charts. It has since been covered by everyone from They Might Be Giants to R.E.M.

Fast-forward to 1991, when THE LION KING put "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the ears of every child under the age of ten - and every child since then who has the movie on VHS or DVD. It's in the stage version of the movie as well. In 2000, Rolling Stone Magazine published a feature article on the history of the song and estimated Disney had made $15 million off the song from THE LION KING, which prompted a PBS documentary titled "The Lion's Trail," which won an Emmy.

Finally, in 2004, Linda's family sued Disney for $1.6 million. It was settled last year for an undisclosed amount. In addition, The Weavers' publisher - the original swipers, according to Wikipedia - began paying $3,000 a year to Linda's heirs. The TIME Magazine headline: "It's a Lawsuit, a Mighty Lawsuit..."

According to the Rolling Stone article, The Tokens' version reached Linda's ears just as he was dying in 1961, penniless in South Africa. It brought a smile to his face, knowing that his music would live on. He had no idea anyone owed him money; to him, the music was the legacy.

"Hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling, the lion sleeps tonight..."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tokens