Luciano Pavarotti
From The Economist print edition
Luciano Pavarotti, the world's favourite tenor, died on September 6th, aged 71
世界最受欢迎的男高音歌唱家卢西亚诺·帕瓦罗蒂于九月六日去世，享年71岁
HE REMEMBERED the moment it began, at four years old: jumping on the kitchen table, setting the lamp swinging, singing “La donna è mobile” to an audience of adoring women. His father sang, beautifully, as a tenor in the church in
他还记得四岁时开始唱歌的那一幕：跳到厨房的桌子上，一边把灯光弄得摇曳不定，一边向他敬慕的女士听众们唱“La donna è mobile”。他父亲是摩德纳市教堂里的一名男高音歌手，唱得非常棒；他的家里常充满了从噼啪乱响的留声机里发出的Gigli 和Caruso的清亮的歌声；Mario Lanza在电影院里唱歌，小卢西亚诺·帕瓦罗蒂则模仿他柔和的颤音并把他的一举一动复制进了镜子里。唱歌是为了爱！
Football was still his chief obsession. Yet as his musical career unfolded, it crossed paths with the Beautiful Game. He performed in stadiums, in front of thousands. The final of the 1990 World Cup in Rome was marked by a concert with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, “The Three Tenors”, who then sang together for 13 years. Pavarotti's version of “Nessun dorma” from Puccini's “Turandot”, the anthem of that World Cup, came to epitomise all the drama, glory and pain of football, with his three climactic “vinceros” at the end of the aria like a perfect free kick, rising, arching, landing sweetly on the very note, safe in the corner of the net.
足球更是他最迷恋的东西。但是当他的音乐生涯展开了后，就和这项美妙的游戏交织在一起。他常在露天体育场为数以千计的观众进行演出。1990年罗马世界杯闭幕式标志性特征就是他和普拉希多·多明戈、José·卡雷拉斯的音乐会。他们被称为“三大男高音”，其后他们三人一起合唱了十三年之久。世界杯的主题曲，帕瓦罗蒂演唱的“Nessun dorma”，来源于普奇尼的“图兰朵”，被认为浓缩了足球运动全部的戏剧性、荣耀和痛苦。在那个咏叹调的结尾处他连唱了三个“vinceros”，就象踢了一个完美的任意球，先是升空，然后弧线飞出，美秒地落在那个恰当的音符之上，安全地躺在网的一角。
Pavarotti made it seem so easy. “Natural” and “effortless” were the words most often applied to that smooth, honeyed, gorgeous voice, which made skin break out in goose-bumps and raised the hairs on the back of the neck. Lasciare andare, pouring it forth. No matter that the singer was huge and almost immobile, his beard blackened with burnt cork and his face running with sweat mopped away with an enormous white handkerchief; the smile was ecstatic, and the voice was from heaven. His biggest break had come, in 1972, when he hit nine high Cs in Donizetti's “La Fille du Régiment”; he was dressed then like a fat toy soldier, patently unable to act, but the crowd adored him. He took 17 curtain calls and, by his death, held the world record for them.
帕瓦罗蒂唱得似乎太容易了。“自然而然”和“毫不费力”是用在他那些圆润甜美、富丽堂皇的嗓音上最经常的词语，而那些音调既能使人浑身起鸡皮疙瘩又让人寒毛直竖。Lasciare andare, pouring it forth.尽管这位歌唱家身材高大得简直难以撼动，胡须乌黑象烧毁的软木，流满了汗泽的脸总是被一块庞大的白手绢抹来抹去，但是那笑容令人心醉，那嗓音简直就是天籁。1972年他取得了职业生涯中的最大突破，在多尼采蒂的“La Fille du Régiment”中连唱了九个高音c调；随后他穿得象个肥胖的玩具军曹，显然不能再演戏了，但是人们依然崇拜他。他曾赢得过连续17次的谢幕掌声，直到他去世，仍然无人超越。
The easiness and naturalness were deceptive. He was terrified of the high notes, full of the usual performer's superstitions: a bent nail kept in his pocket, and a quick cry of “Malocchio!” if anyone mentioned bad luck. Though his voice showed no strain, he could be seen rising on the balls of his feet in recital, using every sinew and nerve to produce the sound. Wherever he went, he made sure to surround himself with home comforts: espresso machines, prosciutto-slicers, bottles of Lambrusco, his blotter and pens laid out exactly as they would be on his desk in Modena, and a secretary—nubile, pretty, obliging—who would hold up cue cards for him in the wings and who, when needed, would warm his extra-marital bed.
那些从容与自然并不是真的。他对高音音调感到恐惧，所以总是保持着演艺人常有的迷信：在口袋里装曲别针，如果有人提到不吉利的事他会迅速喊一声“Malocchio!”。虽然他的声音并未显得紧张，但是能看到他在演唱会上rising on the balls of his feet, 用尽体力和精力去唱出声音。无论他到那里，都要确认周围环境会象在家里一样舒适：浓咖啡机器，意大利熏火腿薄片，bottles of Lambrusco，吸墨纸和钢笔要精确地按照在摩德纳家中桌子上的位置摆放，还必须有一个未婚漂亮的亲切的女秘书，她要为他在飞机上准备提示卡，并且在必要的时候，还要为他暖一下专为婚外恋准备的床。
Critics and other singers often called him lazy. He seemed as undisciplined in singing as he was about food, abandoning diet after diet in favour of porterhouse steaks or caviar scooped up with a tablespoon. Certainly he was unintellectual, without conservatory training and barely able to read music. Learning from a score, he once said, was “like making love by mail”. Words—even those of “O sole mio”, every tenor's meal-ticket—were hard to drum in; in opera or recital he almost never ventured out of his crisp, supple Italian. Narrow as his repertoire was, he was choosy in it: “Tosca”, “Rigoletto”, “Un Ballo in Maschera”. His tendency to cancel got him banned from several houses and soured his farewell at the New York Met.其他歌手和批评家常称他懒惰。他在胃口上的表现似乎和演唱上的毫无作为有相似性，钟情于餐馆的肉排或者大汤勺挖出来的鱼子酱，大吃一顿后却节食。他未接受过音乐学院地系统教育，勉强能够阅读曲谱，毫无疑问不是个知识分子。学习一个乐谱的时候，他曾经说：那“象制作爱情邮件”。词令很难给强行灌输给他，即使那些每个男高音赖以吃饭的行话“澳唯一绪”；在歌剧或者独奏会上他几乎从不冒险说清脆柔软的意大利语以外的语言。以至于谨慎到他保留节目全在“Tosca”, “Rigoletto”, “Un Ballo in Maschera”中慎重挑选。他倾向于取消演出的个性使他在好几个剧场吃到了闭门羹，以及使他不愉快地告别了New York Met 。
Macaroni for the masses大众的通心粉
Yet Pavarotti knew what he was doing. He took things easy, hid throat lozenges in his handkerchief, and looked after his instrument. His voice was “gifted from God”; he sang purely by instinct, aware of “how it should go”, and trusting that a good conductor could follow after him. The sheer beauty of his sound, without acting and without musicianship, could bring the audience to its feet, and he would earn the hard-negotiated money that made him the highest-paid singer in opera.然而帕瓦罗蒂清楚自己的行为。他小心翼翼把润喉糖藏 在手帕里面，照顾着他的发音器官。他的嗓音是“上帝赐予的”；他完全依赖本能唱歌，了解“应该如何去做”，并相信好的合唱也能仿效他。他的嗓音美得纯粹， 没有丝毫的矫揉造作和音乐技巧，能让他的听众乖乖就范，而他则会赚取通过艰苦谈判换来的酬金，使他在歌剧界一直是出价最高的歌唱家。
He was also a natural populist in a field that was sniffy and exclusive, bringing to the Met and Covent Garden a sense of opera as Italian peasant fare, “macaroni” for the masses. Larry King once asked him about singing for the elite. “Why should be elite, music?” came the reply. Pavarotti went on “The Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live”; in his charity concerts he performed with Elton John and the Spice Girls. When critics sniffed about “popera”, he fought back stoutly: “If you call pop singer, you can sell the ticket.” The numbers backed him up: live audiences in the hundreds of thousands, TV audiences in the millions, more than 50m albums sold, five Grammys. “The word ‘commercial’ is exactly what we want,” said the maestro, who also starred in TV ads for American Express. “If you want to use...something more derogatory, we don't care.”在自命不凡与孤芳自赏的领域，他还是一个自然的民粹主义者。他给 Met and Covent Garden带 去的歌剧的印象，就象意大利大众的“通心面”。拉里·金曾经向他探询过为精英阶层唱歌的意愿。“为什么音乐应该属于精英阶层？”他回了一句。帕瓦罗蒂继续 参加“娱乐今夜”和“周六夜现场”节目；在他的慈善音乐会上和埃尔顿·约翰与辣妹一起表演节目。当批评家轻蔑地称之为“popera”时，他猛烈地回击说，“如果你请歌星，你就能卖出去票”。他背后的数字包括：成百上千的现场听众，上百万的电视听众，售出去的超过5千万张的签名册，5项格来美奖。这位艺术大师说道：“商业化这个词就是我们想要的”，他还在美国快递公司的电视广告中担任主角。“如果你想要用….某些更加次的，我们不会关心的。”
To the frustration of his rivals, though they were gentlemanly about it, Pavarotti became the world's favourite tenor. He was the first opera star to be imitated, drunkenly, by legions of joyful or heartbroken football fans. Still crazy for football himself, he never minded. For all his frustrations, sulks and cancellations, a life spent bringing music to mankind was the greatest joy imaginable: singing, and then the crowd's adoration for his singing, as he jumped from the kitchen table and the cheese, the wine, the pasta and the sausages were lavishly spread before him.
没有评论:
发表评论