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One of the most successful and admired opera singers of all time, Luciano Pavarotti was king among tenors from the late 1960s through the 1990s. His voice was noted for its exciting upper register, and tailor-made for the operas of Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti, and Puccini, and as it darkened slightly over the years, for the verismo composers as well. His vocal longevity, which kept him singing youthfully well into his sixties, and still beautifully after that, was a credit to his commanding technique and artistry, and remarkable considering his nearly 40 years of performing.

Pavarotti's father was a baker, and his mother worked in a cigar factory. As a boy, he sang alto in the cathedral choir, and when his voice changed he joined the Modena city choir. He had brief careers as a schoolteacher and an insurance agent; during that time, his major extracurricular activity was not music but soccer, and his play made him a local star. However, increased involvement in the choir (which took prizes in international competitions) led him to pursue vocal studies, and he eventually settled on singing as his aspiration.

Pavarotti studied voice with Arrigo Polo in Modena, then with Ettore Campogalliani in Mantua. His operatic debut was as Rodolfo in La Bohème in Reggio Emilia (April 19, 1961), and soon increasing success led to a debut in Amsterdam on January 18, 1963, as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. After singing the same role with Joan Sutherland in Miami in 1965, he was engaged to travel with her in the Sutherland Williamson International Grand Opera Company, touring Australia. In 1966 he appeared at Covent Garden as Tonio in La fille du régiment, where his seemingly effortless handling of the nine successive high Cs in the aria "Pour mon âme" sent his career into high orbit. He repeated the feat at the Metropolitan Opera in 1972, and for more than two decades after that he was a fixture on the operatic scene, appearing in nearly every major European and American house, and even China, where he performed Puccini's La bohème in the 1980s.

Pavarotti appeared in the first "Live from the Met" broadcast on the PBS network and was the most consistent draw on that series for years. His outstanding catalogue of recordings on the London (Decca) record label preserves nearly every role he ever performed and is hard to match for its quality and scope. His charity work included AIDS benefit concerts and world hunger gala events, as well as his "Pavarotti and Friends" concerts to benefit children, especially in the former Yugoslav states. He also founded a quadrennial contest to identify talented young singers and boost their careers. And, as one of the "Three Tenors," he brought operatic singing to a wider popular audience than previously might have been thought possible. In 2003 he released his first solo crossover CD, Ti adoro. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, yet remained positive and hopeful of still being able to record and perform until his death.

Mirella Freni was the textbook example of a lyric soprano who expanded wisely to the spinto roles, conserving her voice so that even in her sixties, she still possessed enough vocal freshness and bloom that she made a credible Mimi in theaters all over the world. (In Italy, one of her nicknames was "La Prudentissima," or "the most prudent one.") She was also a highly sympathetic actor in both comedies and more serious roles.

Freni was born on February 27, 1935, in Modena, Italy. In an amusing coincidence, she and Luciano Pavarotti shared the same wet nurse as a child (both of their mothers worked in a tobacco factory, making their milk unsuitable), and she later joked that he obviously got the bigger share of the milk. Freni was a child prodigy, singing "Sempre libera" in her first public performance at the age of ten. At 12, she made her broadcast debut singing "Un bel di" in a radio competition. Beniamino Gigli, a competition judge, warned her that she could damage her voice if she continued to sing opera with her voice still so undeveloped. She waited until she was 17 to begin studying again. Her new teacher was Ettore Campogalliani, whose most-celebrated student had been Renata Tebaldi.

In 1955, Freni made her stage debut as Micaela in Carmen, one of her favorite and most effective roles. She briefly postponed further career development when she married conductor Leone Magiera and had a child (whom she named Micaela), but resumed singing again in 1958, when she won the Viotti Competition in Vercelli, Italy. The prize was the role of Mimi in La bohème in Turin, a role in which she later made her Met, La Scala, Chicago, and San Francisco debuts. In 1960, she made her Glyndebourne debut as Zerlina, in 1961, her Covent Garden debut as Nanetta in Falstaff, and in 1963, her La Scala debut as Mimi in the now-famous Zeffirelli production La bohème; Herbert von Karajan was the conductor for this production, and he became one of her prominent supporters. He encouraged her to move toward heavier repertoire, such as Desdemona in Otello, which she first sang with him in 1970; she later filmed Otello with Jon Vickers and Peter Glossop, which was directed and conducted by Karajan. At that time, he declared that he had waited 40 years to hear such a Desdemona. She started to add more lirico-spinto roles to her stage repertoire and also filmed the title role of Madama Butterfly with Karajan. However, she refused to sing the title role of Turandot when he asked her in 1980, and he subsequently refused to work with her again.

In 1981, she married Nicolai Ghiaurov, who encouraged her to examine the Russian repertoire. She began to add Russian songs to her recitals, with his coaching, and then in the late 1980s, she sang the role of Tatiana in Eugene Onegin. In 1990, she took on Lisa in The Queen of Spades. In the mid-'90s, she started singing Giordano roles for the first time, not only Fedora, a role typically beloved by divas toward the end of their careers, but the title role of Madame Sans-Gêne, a comedic, even occasionally farcical role. Her final stage performance came in 2005 at age 70, at the Washington National Opera, where she performed the teenaged lead role of Ioanna in The Maid of Orléans. That same year, she was honored by the Met, celebrating the 40th anniversary of her Met debut and the 50th anniversary of her stage debut. Following a long illness, Freni died in her home in Modena on February 9, 2020.

In 1990, she received the order Cavaliere di Gran Croce della Repubblica Italiana, and in 1993, the Légion d'Honneur. ~ Anne Feeney

Julia Varady is a highly respected soprano who has had a major European career and considerable success elsewhere.

She comes from a fabled part of Rumania that used to belong to Hungary and is home to most of Rumania's ethnic Hungarian population. She studied at the Conservatory in Cluj (formerly Klausenberg), then at the conservatory in the capital city of Bucharest.

She returned to Cluj and in 1960 gained a contract with the Cluj Opera and quickly was given the leading roles in the lyric-dramatic repertory, including Judith in Bluebeard's Castle, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Butterfly in Madama Butterfly (after originally playing the short part of Kate Pinkerton), the Marriage of Figaro (in which she sang, at various times, all three soprano roles), Turandot (as Liù), Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, and Desdemona in Verdi's Otello. During this period she also made guest appearances at the National Opera of Bucharest and in Budapest, Hungary.

In 1970 she joined the company of the Frankfurt-am-Main Opera House at the invitation of its music director, Christoph von Dohnanyi and continued to expand her already large repertory, singing Margarethe in Gounod's Faust, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Antonio in Tales of Hoffman, and the Young Maiden in a historic performance of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, among other parts. In guest appearances in Cologne she had a large success as Violetta in Traviata.

She spent the 1972 - 1973 season with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich following a highly successful appearance in the Munich Festival as Vitellia in Mozart's Clemenza di Tito. As a member of that company she had a triumphal portrayal of Elettra in the same composer's Idomeneo and added Senta in Flying Dutchman and Aïda to her repertory.

During those same years she sang with the leading baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, to whom she was married in 1974. (Their son Martin Fischer-Dieskau began a conducting career in the 1990s.)

By now Varady was appearing at the major international operatic venues and continuing to add important roles to her repertory. She sang at the Edinburgh Festival, Salzburg Festival and other international summer events. Her notable debuts included the Deutsche Opera Berlin in 1978 (Countess in Nozze di Figaro), Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1982, Aïda), Metropolitan Opera (1977 - 1978 season as Donna Elvira), and in the newly opened Bastille Opera in Paris in 1995 (Abigaille in Verdi's Nabucco).

She sang all the major roles in operas of Mozart and Verdi, several Puccini and Strauss roles (Composer, Arabella, and the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten), and such other parts as Orfeo and Alceste in Gluck's operas, Yaroslavna in Prince Igor, Micaëla in Carmen, Handel's Ariodante, Adele in Rossini's Le Comte Ory and the title role in his Cenerentola, Beethoven's Leonora, and the Tchaikovsky roles of Tatyana in Eugene Onegin and Lisa in Queen of Spades.

She has had particular success in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle singing opposite Fischer-Dieskau. The husband and wife team also scored a major success in Aribert Reiman's opera Lear, with Fischer-Dieskau in the title role and Varady as Cordelia, in Spontini's Olympie, and in Halévy's La juive.

Ingvar Wixell was one of the leading operatic baritones of the 20th century. He had a commanding stage presence and dark baritone voice that made him suited for the most dramatic roles, but was also highly effective in comic roles.

He studied in Stockholm. His first operatic appearance was as Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute. His first international appearance came when the Stockholm Royal Opera visited London's Covent Garden in 1960. Then he performed as Ruggiero in Handel's Alcina.

His first appearance at Glyndebourne Festival Opera was as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. Later that year, he sang the same role at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, and was thereupon invited to join it. He became a member of the company in 1963. In 1965 he sang in the popular Eurovision Song Contest. In 1966 he created the role of Pentheus in the world premiere of Hans Werner Henze's The Bassarids at Salzburg. His American debut was in San Francisco as Belcore in L'elisir d'amore, and first sang at the Met in 1973 as Rigoletto.

The Deutsche Oper was the company with which he was most closely associated. He remained on its roster for 35 years, leaving it after his final performance as Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca on November 9, 1998. Scarpia might have been his signature role, but he also sang many Verdi roles, including Don Carlo in La forza del destino, Simon Boccanegra, and Rigoletto. Others of his most important roles were Eugene Onegin, Mandryka in Strauss's Arabella, and the Count in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. In the later part of his career he became a memorable exponent of Verdi's Falstaff, and in 1998 received raves for his singing and comic acting in Donizetti's Viva la Mamma! as Mamma Agatha.

Piero Cappuccilli was one of the premier baritones of his generation, most closely associated with the music of Verdi. His wide range, of more than two-and-a-half octaves, and his near-legendary breath control were perfectly suited to even the most demanding roles. While his physical acting was generally limited, he was a fine vocal interpreter who eschewed extra-musical effects in favor of lyrical nuance.

Cappuccilli had no interest in music while he was growing up, and it took the combined persuasion of several family members--opera lovers who had been impressed by the quality of his untrained voice--to convince him to consider music as a career. He auditioned at a local opera house in 1949, where Luciano Donnaggio (a retired singer beginning a second career as a teacher) heard him and urged him to study. Cappuccilli was still reluctant, believing he had a better potential career as an architect, and even briefly discontinued his lessons, until Donnaggio's urging and the offer of free lessons persuaded him to resume studies in 1950. Cappuccilli's wide range was largely innate, and he had developed excellent breath control due to his enthusiastic sports participation, particularly diving and swimming. Donnaggio and he worked on applying that breath control to singing, sustaining a phrase and developing the technique of messa di voce.

In 1955, Cappuccilli auditioned for La Scala in Milan, where the auditioners, deeply impressed, encourage him to enter the Viotti competition. After his first place award, the Teatro Nuovo engaged him to sing Tonio in Pagliacci, and in 1957 he made his debut. In 1958, he sang Monforte (I Vespri Siciliani) in his Palermo debut under Tulio Serafin, who invited him to sing Enrico in his upcoming recording of Lucia di Lammermoor with Maria Callas. He was soon engaged to sing at other houses in Italy and abroad, making his Met debut as Germont in 1960, and his La Scala debut in 1964. He made his Covent Garden debut in 1967 as Germont in La Traviata, and his United States debut in 1969 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a relative rarity--Verdi's I due Foscari.

Through the 1970s, he developed his repertoire carefully, balancing the Verdi with bel canto roles, such as Rossini's Figaro, and waiting to add the heavier roles, such as Simon Boccanegra.

Giuseppe Patanè was a leading conductor of the middle years of the 20th century, particularly well known for his work in opera.

His father was also a conductor, Franco Patanè (1908-1968), who introduced his son to music. Giuseppe studied piano and conducting at the Conservatorio San Pietro à Majella in Naples. While there, he was chosen at the age of 19 to conduct a performance of La Traviata at the Teatro Mercadante in Naples.

He began a typical apprenticeship for a European operatic conductor, serving as a repetiteur and assistant conductor (1951-1956) then moved to become principal conductor in a smaller provincial theater, the Linz Landestheater, in 1961. In the meantime, he began making guest conducting appearances in several European cities.

Successful fulfillment of a leadership role in a small part typically leads to engagement on the conducting staff of a major house in the standard conductors' career path, and in Patanè's case this was as a resident conductor at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (1962-1968).

He made his conducting debut at La Scala in 1969 in Rigoletto and debuted at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1973 in La forza del destino. He also conducted frequently at the Vienna State Opera, Copenhagen, and San Francisco. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1978.

While best known for opera, he also was highly respected as an orchestral conductor and was co-principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York from 1982 to 1984, chief conductor of the Mannheim National Theater (1984 - 1987), and chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra in 1988. He died suddenly while conducting a performance of Il barbieri di Siviglia at the Bavarian State Opera.

He recorded several operas in the Italian repertory, particularly by Puccini, and several symphonic performances. His style was brilliant, energetic, with a tense, tight line reminiscent of Toscanini. He is particularly known for recordings in which he accompanied soprano Maria Callas.

Although he was not an international conducting star, Gianandrea Gavazzeni was one of the most respected and dependable of opera conductors, considered one of the great preservers of the authentic Verdi tradition at La Scala. He was also a composer, but renounced that career.

At the age of 11 he entered the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, studying piano there from 1921 to 1924. In 1925, he entered Milan Conservatory, remaining there through 1931. His primary area of study was composition, mainly under Ildebrando Pizzetti.

He started his musical career in the traditional entry-level job of répétiteur (i.e., individual coach who ensures that singers are prepared according to the conductor's interpretation), as a pianist, and as a journalist in the field of music.

When he had an opportunity to conduct, he began to champion the music of his fellow composers Pizzetti, Luigi Dallapiccola, Gian-Francesco Mailipiero, and Goffredo Petrassi, the leading modernists on the Italian scene at the time, having also supported them in his journalistic writings.

Gavazzeni composed actively at this time. His oratorio Canti per Sant'Alessandro (1934) and an opera, Paolo e Virginia (1935), were performed and well received. He wrote additional orchestral and vocal music. But in 1949, as his conducting career was taking off, he not only announced his retirement as a composer, but also banned any further performances of his works.

In 1948 he first conducted at La Scala Opera in Milan, where he continued to conduct frequently through 1977. He was the artistic director of that house from 1965 to 1972. He also often conducted at Maggio Musicale of Florence. His British debut was at the 1957 Edinburgh Festival, conducting a guest appearance of the smaller La Scala touring company called La Piccolo Scala. He appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1965, leading Anna Bolena by Donizetti, and at the Metropolitan Opera (his U.S. debut) in 1976. He conducted widely in Europe, including several appearances at the Bol'shoi in Moscow, and in Canada and the U.S. He was best known for his interpretations of operas of Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and the verismo school.

He continued his notable career as a music journalist. His Musicians of Europe (Musicisti d'Europe, Milan, 1954) was a notable summing up of the immediate post-War classical music scene, and biographical/musical studies of Bellini and Donizetti are also well respected.