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It was the role that made Luciano Pavarotti a star. In April, another tenor brought it to the same theater that had been Pavarotti's launching pad. Juan Diego Florez upped the ante.
Florez had already appeared in Donizetti's “The Daughter of the Regiment” in Europe. On some nights, responding to cheering audiences, he repeated the country boy Tonio's big aria – a bravura number with nine high C's. Last spring, he came to New York for performances at the Metropolitan Opera, scene of Pavarotti's triumph in 1972. Speculation bubbled up. Would he encore the aria at the Met, too? No one had been that nervy for decades. Well, no one except Pavarotti, who repeated an aria in Puccini's “Tosca” in 1994.
So the performance arrived. Florez vaulted through the aria, the audience went mad, and Florez took the plunge on nine more high C's.
Was the result a Pavarotti-style phenomenon? Not really. But Florez didn't need that. Because he's so at ease on the tenor high wire – and has a poetic streak to boot – he already has a big career. To me, the whole thing seemed like someone was trying to manufacture a sensation. But see what you think. A later performance was beamed into movie theaters, and it comes around on television next Saturday on WTVI-Ch. 42. Maybe Florez will make his sensation yet.
