Jürgen Kesting

This is a peculiar hybrid of a book that starts out by suggesting that it is going to reveal the great tenor as a schlock cultural phenomenon, much as Joseph Horowitz did to Arturo in Understanding Toscanini. One could hardly make a book out of such a slender premise, however, and after a couple of chapters in which Kesting notes that these days Pavarotti is "famous chiefly for being famous," and pours scorn on the singer's professed belief that his sellout bellowing matches with the Three Tenors helps bring more people to opera, Kesting settles down into something much more interesting. This is a history of the role of the operatic tenor in the popular imagination (a comparatively recent development, barely a century old) and the way in which a hitherto little-used voice has become central to the traditional opera experience. Kesting, a German cultural journalist, is fantastically knowledgeable about niceties of performance, and traces his hero's (or villain's) rise, through ever more limited displays of his real abilities, to his present meaningless eminence. In the process he offers many acute observations on the ways in which performance standards have coarsened, particularly in the past 50 years. There is a careful critical evaluation of Pavarotti's more presentable recordings, and a discography that includes them all, even the dross. It's no book for fans, but for a serious opera lover, it offers much to think about.

Head of Stern magazine's cultural department and author of a respected book on the career and recordings of Maria Callas, Kesting here updates a work published in Germany in 1991. He examines the tenor voice, its evolution, and the changing demands placed on it by major composers. More enticingly, he posits that "Pavarotti is no longer famous because of the quality of his singing, but simply because he is so incredibly famous," and he goes on to consider the conflicts between fame and art. He disputes Pavarotti's claim that his appearances outside the opera house are meant to attract a new audience to the theatre. In fact, the tenor has become an industry and as a result is no longer judged by any standard musical or aesthetic criteria. Throughout, Kesting demonstrates an exhaustive knowledge of vocal techniques and repertoire and is able to support his opinions with specific examples.… (meer)