Self Publishing UK | BACKSTAGE WITH PAVAROTTI AND OTHER EGOS

By John Duffus

“A fascinating book. Definitely a must-read for all who attended concerts by the great and much-adored singer.” amazon.com reviewer Backstage with Pavarotti and Other Egos: Disasters On The High Cs Luciano Pavarotti was one of the best-loved international personalities of the 20th century. A singer who broke free of opera houses to perform before massive audiences in huge arenas around the world, becoming in the process the richest opera singer in history. John Duffus presented and worked on a dozen concerts with Pavarotti, including the last he ever sang to a paying public in December 2005, as well as others with such artists as Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Isaac Stern and fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras. The Three Tenors became a stunningly popular entertainment phenomenon at the end of the 20th century. Blessed with a glorious voice, described by conductor Richard Bonynge with whom he had frequently worked as “a freak of nature that comes very rarely in 100 years”, Pavarotti seemingly had it all. After his entry into arenas, though, disasters began to strike with increasing regularity. He was cancelling previously scheduled concerts and operas virtually at a whim. The ego had become as large as his girth. The backstage shenanigans of the promoters, agents and others who worked on these concerts have never been revealed, until now. This is particularly true of his personal manager, described to the author as “the biggest barracuda in the fish tank”, and his concert promoter, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps with “a taste for tinsel”. They help to illustrate the large part played by egos in the disasters that ensued.