This morning after soccer practice, we sat around the kitchen table and watched YouTube videos of Luciano Pavarotti, who died Thursday after a long and brilliant life of song. We found ourselves wiping our eyes as we listened. But you don't have to be an opera fan to see the power he had in this clip: the human, unadorned, vast emotional range and vocal control. In the paper today, a writer said opera's celebrated "high c's" are the sound of the human cry. Perhaps. But it is a cry that contains yearning, love, grief, joy and everything that words can't express.
Arrivederci, maestro. Your music lives in our hearts.
(I don't think it is necessary to know a song's lyrics in order to feel its power (a lot of opera lyrics are just silly) but if you are curious, below is a rough translation of Una Furtiva Lagrima.)
One tear that falls so furtively
from her sweet eyes has just sprung,
as if she envied all the youths
who laughingly passed her right by.
What could I want more than this?
She loves me! I see it.
One moment just to hear her heart,
beating so close next to mine,
to hear my sighs like they were hers,
her sighings as if they were mine!
Heavens, please take me now:
All that I wanted is mine now!
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