A drop of Irish luck in the rise of a legend

Pavarotti credited his Dublin performance in 1963 with his international success. Jim Morahan traces the connections.

THINK Italia ’90 — the glory days of Irish soccer — and the heart soars to the strains of Pavarotti, at his peak.

Nessun Dorma, the World Cup anthem, sung by the Italian tenor can still bring a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye — and not only to lovers of soccer and opera.

Fitting that Ireland and Luciano should find a resonance, for Dublin was the staging post for world dominance by the most-loved tenor.

He arrived in Ireland for the 1963 spring season of Italian opera put on by the Dublin Grand Opera Society, as it was then known, making his Irish debut at the Gaiety Theatre.

It emerged London’s Covent Garden needed a tenor when illness forced the legendary Giuseppe di Stefano out of La Bohème. Pavarotti, ever grateful for the London breakthrough, soon captivated audiences across the globe.

In 1989 the legend returned for a concert at The Point, returning again in 1994 to play at the RDS. The Point in September 2005 marked his Farewell Tour’s Irish leg.

The late impresario Jim Aiken had Pavarotti play in his native Belfast in 1999, bantering with the big man’s manager over the choice of venue. Pavarotti’s man said the singer would play anywhere there was a castle or where the Pope had visited.

Aiken retorted, with a typical mischievous smile, he’d do better than that and provide a venue the Pope would never visit — Stormont Castle.

U2 frontman Bono — whose band wrote Miss Sarajevo for Pavarotti — paid a personal tribute to his late friend. Writing on the band’s website, Bono recalled: “I spoke to him last week... the voice that was louder than any rock band was a whisper. Still he communicated his love. Full of love.

“That’s what people don’t understand about Luciano Pavarotti. Even when the voice was dimmed in power, his interpretive skills left him a giant among a few tall men.”

Virginia Kerr, chair of Opera Theatre Company, Ireland’s national touring opera company, said: “When the world woke this morning to the news that Luciano Pavarotti had passed away in the early hours, I feel sure that people everywhere shed a tear for this large, amiable man, who brought so much pleasure with his remarkable voice and generosity of spirit.”

Ms Kerr said she would like to extend her sympathy to his family and friends and to join his fans throughout the world in mourning his loss.

“He was an inspiration to all singers and one of the greatest talents the world has ever known,” she added.

In one of his last interviews, Pavarotti said: “I have had everything in life, really everything. And if everything is taken away from me, with God we’re even and quits.”

Pavarotti’s last public performance of Nessun Dorma was at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, in February 2006.