“The bellowing”: The singer that never ceases to amaze Jeff Beck
Following psychedelic rock‘s The Yardbirds’ dissolution in 1968, all former guitarists were either already or on the cusp of standing as popular music’s most celebrated axe wielders. Eric Clapton was already turning heads with Cream’s acid blues attack, and Jimmy Page boasted a voluminous litany of session credits with some of the day’s biggest names before dreaming up the Led Zeppelin stadium monster whose debut would be dropped the following year.
Jeff Beck would go on to flex the most diverse body of work. After a few years leading his ‘Group’ and the Beck, Bogert & Appice trio, Beck would spend his life intrepidly leaving no genre stone unturned. Hard rock, rustic blues, jazz fusion, and even an exploration of 1990s electronica smattered his lengthy oeuvre.
Looking back to the classical works of the early 20th century, Beck would tackle Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony and record an instrumental version of Puccini’s immortal aria ‘Nessun Dorma’ from 1926’s Turandot opera. Having caught the classical bug, Beck would further immerse himself in the canonical works of history’s greats.
“I was looking for some other pieces to record,” Beck told Guitar World. “One that I liked very much was Ravel’s ‘Pavane’, so I learned that, and I was listening to what they were playing on the Albert Hall Prom (The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts). Every year they have a prom, which is a big music festival. I’m looking away from rock and roll into proper, serious melodies, and, for me, it has been a good playground to look into. And Pavarotti never ceases to amaze me; the bellowing — the big, deep, proper opera singing — is something I love, and I was keen to try ‘Nessun Dorma’, which he sang magnificently”.
Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti was opera’s first superstar. Already a heavyweight in the classical music world and dubbed the ‘King of the High C’s’ in honour of his powerful vocal performances, it would be thirty years into his career before he became a household name.
Forming the Three Tenors trio with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, the joint performance of Turandot‘s protagonist Prince Calaf’s passionate declaration of love for the titular princess became forever defined as the theme of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, ‘Nessun Dorma’ memorably sung on the eve of its final.
Pavarotti actively sought to collaborate with the pop artists of the day. Lending his voice to The Passengers’ ‘Miss Sarajevo’—the sole single from U2 and Brian Eno’s 1995 side-project—the veteran tenor was keen to forge a marriage between the classical and the mainstream, despite disgruntlement from some of opera’s purists. Beginning in 1992, the Pavarotti & Friends series of benefits concerts attracted some of pop’s biggest names, from Meat Loaf, Elton John, Spice Girls, Deep Purple and James Brown.
Such dallying with the world of pop thrust Pavarotti into a cultural presence unlikely ever to be topped. Holding the official record for the most curtain calls at 165, and The Three Tenors’ 1990 Carreras Domingo Pavarotti in Concert, the biggest-selling classical album, Pavarotti looks set to serve for many as an introductory gateway to the opera’s rich heritage.
