Appreciation for beauty, talent and greatness must be innate. Apparently, as a two-year old I was already well on my way to being the cultural snob that I am today. There has to be a snob gene.
I have no recollection of this, but one of many childhood stories is about when the pediatrician, attempting to allay my apprehension with some small talk, asked me if I liked the Tango. I immediately and indignantly shot back, "I like Beethoven, Luciano Pavarotti and Richard Wagner!". It went downhill from there when he put that icy cold stethoscope on my bare little chest and I blurted out, "Hijo de puta!". Mother wanted to crawl into a hole. Here she had finally managed to get an appointment with one of the best and most renowned pediatricians in all of Buenos Aires, and her little darling goes and calls the grandfatherly gentleman a son of a bitch. I was a precocious little thing.
My tastes haven't changed since I was two. I still love Beethoven, Pavarotti and Wagner, though I did come around to appreciating the Tango. But after having recently been introduced to Silly Songs with Larry, of which my favorite so far is Larry's High Silk Hat, I can see there might be more to life. Now whatta ya think of that?
It was a bit sad to hear that Pavarotti has been hospitalized. The report is encouraging but it makes me realize that the time of his greatness has passed, never to return. One of the greatest tenors of all time, lauded by the entire world for so many years is just trying to stay alive now. Mortality sucks.
Pavarotti doctors 'positive' about singer's condition
11/08/2007 - 12:41:35
Doctors treating Luciano Pavarotti in an Italian hospital are "very positive" about the star's illness.
The Italian tenor, who is battling pancreatic cancer, was admitted to the Modena University Policlinico in northern Italy on Wednesday with a fever - but medics are confident the star will make a recovery.
His second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, insists the star's condition appears to be improving.
She says: "He is calm, he is talking and joking. The doctors are very positive."
Doctors at the hospital expect the singer to be discharged from hospital "within the next few days".
Pavarotti underwent surgery for his cancer last year and has since had at least five rounds of chemotherapy. Fears for his health mounted further last month when his daughter Guiliana reportedly told a magazine her famous father hasn't got long to live.
I regret never having seen Pavarotti in a live performance. To have heard him sing at La Scala would have been something. I think he made a wise choice to study music instead of become a professional soccer player, which he was seriously considering.
Here is the great Luciano Pavarotti singing one of the great arias the way no one else can or ever will again. By the way, microphones are not used in opera. His voice rises above all those instruments and fills that entire opera house with no sound magnification device whatsoever. That's quite a feat.
Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma 1994
Get well, Luciano.
I have no recollection of this, but one of many childhood stories is about when the pediatrician, attempting to allay my apprehension with some small talk, asked me if I liked the Tango. I immediately and indignantly shot back, "I like Beethoven, Luciano Pavarotti and Richard Wagner!". It went downhill from there when he put that icy cold stethoscope on my bare little chest and I blurted out, "Hijo de puta!". Mother wanted to crawl into a hole. Here she had finally managed to get an appointment with one of the best and most renowned pediatricians in all of Buenos Aires, and her little darling goes and calls the grandfatherly gentleman a son of a bitch. I was a precocious little thing.
My tastes haven't changed since I was two. I still love Beethoven, Pavarotti and Wagner, though I did come around to appreciating the Tango. But after having recently been introduced to Silly Songs with Larry, of which my favorite so far is Larry's High Silk Hat, I can see there might be more to life. Now whatta ya think of that?
It was a bit sad to hear that Pavarotti has been hospitalized. The report is encouraging but it makes me realize that the time of his greatness has passed, never to return. One of the greatest tenors of all time, lauded by the entire world for so many years is just trying to stay alive now. Mortality sucks.
Pavarotti doctors 'positive' about singer's condition11/08/2007 - 12:41:35
Doctors treating Luciano Pavarotti in an Italian hospital are "very positive" about the star's illness.
The Italian tenor, who is battling pancreatic cancer, was admitted to the Modena University Policlinico in northern Italy on Wednesday with a fever - but medics are confident the star will make a recovery.
His second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, insists the star's condition appears to be improving.
She says: "He is calm, he is talking and joking. The doctors are very positive."
Doctors at the hospital expect the singer to be discharged from hospital "within the next few days".
Pavarotti underwent surgery for his cancer last year and has since had at least five rounds of chemotherapy. Fears for his health mounted further last month when his daughter Guiliana reportedly told a magazine her famous father hasn't got long to live.
I regret never having seen Pavarotti in a live performance. To have heard him sing at La Scala would have been something. I think he made a wise choice to study music instead of become a professional soccer player, which he was seriously considering.
Here is the great Luciano Pavarotti singing one of the great arias the way no one else can or ever will again. By the way, microphones are not used in opera. His voice rises above all those instruments and fills that entire opera house with no sound magnification device whatsoever. That's quite a feat.
Get well, Luciano.
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