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Others do. The Pavarotti voice inspires some opera buffs to evoke the pre-World War I Golden Age, and others to proclaim a new one. "It's a phenomenal instrument, one of those freaks of nature that come very rarely in a hundred years," says Conductor Richard Bonynge. Clear and penetrating, it has a brilliant, metallic timbre and yet remains warm, with a gorgeous romantic sheen. Pavarotti supports it with a taut, energizing column of air that keeps the tone uniform from top to bottom; ins notes have been described as a set of "perfectly matched pearls."
His range is high, encompassing top Bs, Cs and even Ds with an unforced, open-throated quality that Italians call lasciarsi andare—letting it pour forth. Many tenors blessed with such an instrument would be content to let it pour forth at top volume, and subtlety be damned. Pavarotti has instinctive taste and musicality, not to mention a keen sense of timing. He shades his phrasing and dynamics in order to bring the composer's lines to life and let them breathe.
To George Cehanovsky, 87, a former baritone at the Metropolitan who has heard most of the great voices of this century, Pavarotti combines the pastosa (soft) beauty of Beniamino Gigli with the effortless high notes of Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. Others hear echoes of Jussi Bjoerling's silvery refinement. Pavarotti inmself cites a more recent predecessor as a model: Giuseppe di Stefano, who at his best had a burnished, flowing style.
"But voice alone isn't what ensures a singer's immortality," says Rosa Ponselle, whose own niche in the soprano pantheon seems secure. "There's a certain something that makes its way across the footlights, sometimes even through the electrical circuits in a recording machine. Pavarotti has it." Ponselle believes it is this ineffable communicative power, and not matters of timbre and style, that forges the link between Pavarotti and his forerunners, especially Caruso. Says Ponselle: "Probably the biggest similarity between Pavarotti and Caruso is the way each could envelop an audience, the way each could make every person feel that he or she was being sung to individually."
With Pavarotti this is a conscious intention. He senses his voice traveling along a separate thread to each member of the audience, and he depends desperately on the response that returns along that thread. "Applause is our oxygen." he says, and the more vociferous, even hysterical, the better. He feels that his voice blossoms before a 'hot" audience. When he began giving concerts and recitals, however, the intimacy with the audience and the absence of operatic costumes caused him to lose concentration. Now he sings to an imaginary listener, whom he pictures in the center of the balcony, in order to keep his chin up and throat straight. "It could never be an actual member of the audience," he says. "It would be disastrous if he blew his nose, or yawned, or began to beat time."