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Now that the dust has settled on the careers of both Michael Jackson and Luciano Pavarotti, comparisons are apt.
Not that you’ll get many of them here. I want merely to state that listening to Pavarotti sing these seven pieces by Donizetti, Verdi, Strauss, Rossini, and (of course) Puccini is like watching a Michael Jordan highlight film.
Because The Mike has been playing golf rather than basketball for several years now, it’s possible to look back on his career with open-jawed admiration without having to state that he was the best ever. He may have been, he may not have been. It’s irrelevant.
The pertinent point is that he had unsurpassed physical skills and intuition, was an intense gamesman, had a discernible personality that he didn’t find it below himself to reveal, and clearly loved the game.
Ditto on Pavarotti. Every bit the showman that Michael was, he brought to bear formidable natural gifts and the ability to make opera accessible to many who would have shunned it as nose-turned-up puffery in the B.P. (‘Before Pavarotti’) era. Compare the soaring popularity of the NBA during the Reign of Michael.
As the title suggests, the pieces Pavarotti performs on this album are selected to showcase the upper register. That they do. Fairly or not, a tenor’s popular reputation lives or dies by the High C. Arguably, Pavarotti was still aiming for them when he should have hung up his socks.
No matter. He hits all of them here.
Canter Bridge 
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