Pavarotti

Pavarotti (2019) tells Luciano Pavarotti's life through archive footage and interviews. It runs three things in parallel: the voice itself, the decision to take opera into stadiums, and the collapse of his private life. Ron Howard directed. He had made The Beatles: Eight Days a Week and uses the same method here: access granted by family and estate, a warm portrait, and limited critical distance. The most interesting section is the Three Tenors. Before the 1990 World Cup, Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras performed together in Rome; the album became one of the best selling classical recordings ever made and opera suddenly reached a football audience. Parts of the opera world regarded that as vulgarisation, and the documentary touches on the argument. His separation from his first wife and his marriage to an assistant thirty four years younger are also covered, with both sides of the family speaking on camera. It runs 115 minutes. Good for: opera, music documentaries, and the debate about popularisation. Less good for: the film openly admires him and does not press the hard questions. The cancelled concerts and the wearing of the voice late in his career are passed over quickly. For anyone new to opera the musical passages may feel long.