Luciano Pavarotti died last night after a year-plus battle with pancreatic cancer. I feel terrible about making an “Ill Divo” joke, but we have to be true to our nature, right?
I’ll try to make some form of penance next month when I’m in Milan. Maybe make a pilgrimage to La Scala and leave a white hanky.
Here was crikey.com.au’s take on it…..
Luciano Pavarotti is dead. Why does this resonate? Because the life of Pavarotti is an allegory for our time, our decadent decline made flesh.
Here was a man blessed by talent, art and beauty who was consumed by vanity and the dumb blandishments of vapid celebrity. A man gifted with an abundant natural resource – a larynx touched by God he thought – a creature of incalculable, classical, learned beauty that ended up stuffing itself with lard and singing duets with Bono.
This is our age on legs: cancer laden, caked in hair dye, fake tan and kohl, still sort of singing. Then dead. RIP.