Sunday 16 September 2007
Luciano Pavarotti "Nessun Dorma":Larger Than Life
"Death acts as a catalyst," explains HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo. "We've seen that with Elvis of course, with Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and Johnny Cash. Those living legends have that kind of iconic status and public demand increases when they pass away." Does that mean Luciano Pavarotti will become bigger even in death than he was in life?
Perhaps it depends how far his estate is willing to go to sell some more records. In recent years, capitalising on a dead star has involved some fairly creative marketing efforts. Last month, for instance, Lisa Marie Presley commemorated the 30th anniversary of her father's passing by "dead duetting" on a rendition of In the Ghetto. Even this slightly macabre approach, nicked wholesale from Natalie Cole (who sang with the late Nat King Cole in 1991), pales next to the Bob Marley/Notorious BIG collaboration on the latter's posthumous compilation Duets: The Final Chapter - surely the first time two dead artists have hooked up in the studio.
Opera might be 400 years older than gangster rap and attract a more mature audience, but surely the emotional outpouring that marked Pavarotti's passing last week shows this is a market with similar potential.
Certainly, the media has been quick to cash in. Wall-to-wall coverage of the great tenor's life and funeral was swiftly followed by the obligatory tales of internecine wrangles over his fortune - "Pava's £250m family war" ran the headline in Tuesday's Sun. Meanwhile, showcasing its seeming psychic capabilities, the Daily Mail was offering a "free Pavarotti CD for every reader" on the day that he died.
By comparison, the record industry's response has been muted and respectful. The front page to Decca Classics' website was immediately given over to a simple 1935-2007 memorial. Another official website, Pavarotti-forever.com, hosts a trove of audio, video and photographic memories, but not anywhere to buy his music. The domain name was registered on August 10, suggesting that the great man's demise had been anticipated.
The apparent lack of cashing-in can be attributed in part to the immediacy of digital retail. Ten years ago, a record label would have rush-released a compilation in order to capture the public mood. Not any more, because with the music available through internet stores there is no need to repackage. So without any overt promotion, Pavarotti - The Ultimate Collection has risen to No 11 on the Amazon album chart, while The Three Tenors' rendition of Nessun Dorma charted at No 24 based on downloads alone. With an extra week's sales, the aria from Puccini's Turandot is expected to reach the top 10 this Sunday.
Distribution of Pavarotti's best-known works will be stepped up in the coming weeks, says Dickon Stainer, MD of Universal Music Classics & Jazz, but for the time being the momentum lies firmly with the public. In the longer term, the label's role will be to look beyond Nessun Dorma and promote wider acknowledgement of his career.
"He was signed to this company for over 40 years. The greatest way of protecting his legacy is to make superb records available and to tell the story and to make sure that people remember him through the recordings," says Stainer, "because the records are incredible. Our job is to go tell the fairytale again, and keep it alive."
Which sounds like a romantic philosophy, but under the circumstances is a sensible strategy. Will this lead to the canonisation of Pavarotti in the years ahead? As with the present situation, that is probably out of the record company's hands, too. But given the unbridled commercialism of his later years - when he sang alongside U2, Bryan Adams and Aqua - the notion that someone somewhere is thinking along the lines of Pavarotti: The Movie should probably not be discounted completely.
Luciano Pavarotti 
Luciano Pavarotti Nessun Dorma
Nessun Dorma
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