Pavarotti was the world’s worst chess player, but he was also, arguably, the world’s greatest tenor. He was also the most compassionate and good-natured Met Opera colleague I’ve known in my 46 years of fiddling in the pit.
I recall his hair-raising Met debut in La fille du règiment, when his nine high Cs left the audience gasping and the orchestra musicians not believing their ears. Years later, when we were recording L’elisir d’amore with Luciano, I wound up playing chess with him during every rest period. He invariably lost every game, but with such humor and grace that, embarrassed, I tried to let him win by making weak moves. Yet no matter how bad a move I made, he would manage to make a worse one, promptly resign, and with a broad grin set up the pieces for another game.
Meanwhile, while the other musicians went out for dinner, he would insist that I share a stack of Zabar’s sandwiches with him, washed down with Perrier. He loved the game of chess. I loved him. Why, you wonder?
Somehow, he’d heard that my wife had just given birth prematurely. My three-and-a-half pound baby girl was fighting for her life in a Lenox Hill hospital incubator while we were recording music and playing chess. Luciano appeared devastated, as though he was a family member. “Coraggio,” he kept saying, squeezing my hand. And when, thank goodness, my preemie was out of danger, the great tenor said, “You know, I am very jealous of you, my friend.” I was shocked and asked why. He went on to explain that in Italy it is not socially acceptable for a man to father a child after a certain age—and I was 58. Yet Luciano confessed that he would give anything to have more children in his senior years. (And so he did, though with tragic complications I cannot go into here.)
As for Luciano’s good-natured sense of humor, an example: One day, after a Met rehearsal, I was chatting with one of my colleagues, a very attractive young lady violinist. As we crossed Broadway, a long, white limousine pulled up alongside us. A window rolled down, and Pavarotti, beaming, stuck his head out. “Hey!” he shouted, “whatsa matta, you don’t wanna know me when you talk to beautiful woman?” I laughed. My colleague blushed. Luciano shook his fist at me. “ I will beat you in chess yet!” he cried, as the limo moved slowly away. “My cousin in Modena is a master and he will coach me!”
I will miss you terribly, Luciano. But we will play chess again—in Valhalla, or wherever heroic tenors and old violinists spend eternity.
