flights of angels, redux

I was never particularly a Pavarotti fan -- Carreras is my favorite of The Three Tenors, I suppose, but as with other voice parts I tend to prefer a simpler, less vibratey tone than the opera kids tend to go for -- but I'll tell you what: on the radio about half an hour ago, the director of the Baltimore opera (tangent: why'd you use him, WTOP, when you're here in DC and could have called the Kennedy Center and got Placido, the artistic director of the Washington Opera and the third Tenor on the phone in minutes? bah.) was talking about Pavarotti's debut at the Met, with Joan Sutherland in The Daughter of the Regiment, in which he had an aria with nine high C's.

And I got a little misty.

Maybe it's the same kind of misty I get w/r/t Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, I guess -- which I did even before I'd seen the film -- because it's not just Peter O'Toole as Lawrence, it's introducing Peter O'Toole as Lawrence. As Lawrence! And this was Pavarotti's debut! I mean, he must have worked before, where apparently O'Toole hadn't -- but still, the idea of the first time you go on that stage being the time you sing nine high C's in the same number.*

Yeah, he was one of the great ones, all right.

*I haven't fact-checked, of course, and presumably at the Post they have, where they say his debut at the Met was La Bohème and the Regiment thing wasn't until four years later. Which I suppose makes it fractionally less of a thing, but still, nine C's. NINE.