http://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/sep/06/guardianobituaries.obituaries
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/10106/index1.html
My Big Fat Obnoxious Opera-Singing Client
Breslin’s bitterest memory, however, and the one that triggered the pair’s split, was Pavarotti’s now-legendary failure to appear at what was billed as his farewell Metropolitan Opera performance ofTosca—and his refusal to take the stage and apologize to his fans for being ill and unable to sing. “I was very disappointed he refused to do that,” Breslin told me. “I guess he felt that it was too much of a come-down for him. He began to believe that he is Luciano Pavarotti. It happens.”Pavarotti, 69, is today busy with a two-year, 40-concert farewell tour, and has refused to speak publicly about Breslin (though he did sit for an interview with Midgette, which forms the work’s epilogue). A spokesperson says Pavarotti is “puzzled” as to “why somebody who became so rich would take this route,” though the tenor “remains philosophical about it.”
What many in the opera world cannot abide about Breslin is his insertion of himself as a character, a colorful one, into the Pavarotti narrative. The jolly, fat Italian tenor represented by the tough-talking New York Jew is a compelling shtick, and Breslin has milked it for years. A classical-music wallflower of a manager does nothing to increase the profile of a tenor uniquely talented or otherwise. But a combative, cursing dynamo willing to reduce people to tears in the service of his charismatic yet sensitive client—that’s a story. Some people might even read an entire book about it
https://youtu.be/6KCnoOzrA1o
https://youtu.be/sn6L4iZ6Gbw
http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/arts/most_successful_tenor_world_record_set_by_Luciano_Pavarotti_70839.htm
