Decca Records To Celebrate Luciano Pavarotti’s Legacy With Year-Long Campaign
The PAVAROTTI 90 initiative kicks off with an emotional live album and career-spanning compilation.
This October marks 90 years since the birth of Luciano Pavarotti. Decca Records is celebrating the occasion with a year-long campaign honoring the legendary opera singer.
The PAVAROTTI 90 festivities began July 12 in North Wales. Pavarotti’s widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, returned to the site of his first international performance at the 1955 Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, where a 19-year-old Pavarotti sang alongside his father in the Corale Rossini choir, prevailing over 22 choirs from around the world in the competition. “It was the beginning of everything,” Mantovani said of young Pavarotti’s performance in Wales. “Luciano often said that without Llangollen, there would have been no career.”
Pavarotti returned to Llangollen four decades later for an emotional performance, which will be documented on the new live album The Lost Concert: Live from Llangollen (1995). Set for release on November 21, the album captures a deeply meaningful night, with the Italian tenor operating at the peak of his powers. “Forty years ago, my God — it seems to be just yesterday for me,” he told the crowd. “I have done so many things. I always say to the journalists when they ask me what is the most memorable day in my life, and I always say it is when I won this competition, because it was with all my friends.”
The Lost Concert will be released with a 100-page book filled with essays, photographs, and archival material. The album also includes two recordings of the Corale Rossini from 1955, believed to be the earliest extant recording of Pavarotti’s voice, plus a rare interview about that pivotal performance. A film version of The Lost Concert will also be available on BluRay.
In addition to The Lost Concert, PAVAROTTI 90 will see the release of Novanta, a 74-track career-spanning compilation. Out Oct. 10, Novanta includes Pavarotti’s earliest studio recordings, duets with fellow superstars including Bono, Elton John, and Andrea Bocelli, and rare performances from Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal.
