If you're a Pavarotti fan and you're in the UK, the new Daily Telegraph promotion seems pretty cool -- it's always a good day to listen to Pavarotti.
And, we also get a nice Rupert Christiansen riff on Big Luciano:
His art doesn’t belong exclusively to the operatic cognoscenti: like his great predecessors Caruso, Gigli, Lanza and Björling, he had what used to be called “the common touch” – a simple generosity and open charm that appealed to anyone with music in their heart.
Let’s not be sentimental about this. Pavarotti didn’t have all the gifts. Nobody could pretend he was a great actor, nor was he the most subtle of interpreters. He lacked Domingo’s incredible versatility and intelligence. I would even say that for sheer beauty of sound, his voice doesn’t match either that of the young Giuseppe di Stefano or the young José Carreras.
But Pavarotti was a natural, with a genius for the music of his native Italy. To the elegant bel canto of Bellini and Donizetti, the high romantic operas of Verdi, the lush melancholy melodies of Puccini or the insouciance of Neapolitan song, he brought a voice of perfect focus and clarion purity, crisply and effortlessly articulated. There’s no effort in his singing at its best; there is only joy, and a sense of it being the easiest thing in the world (which it certainly isn’t).