Che gelida! Pavarotti sinks in ice

Che gelida! Pavarotti sinks in ice

News

norman lebrecht

December 02, 2025

The town of Pesaro has created an ice-rink around its bronze statue of Luciano Pavarotti, leaving the late tenor in Titanic misery.

His ‘angry and upset’ widow Nicola Mantovani told local media: ‘I didn’t expect a town would allow this treatment of the memory and the image of a person who made Italy great around the world.’

The mayor has apologised, for what that’s worth.

Comments

  • Lionel Mandrake says:

    Sic transit gloria mundi

  • Dot Beech says:

    The widow’s silly statement underscores how small this kerfuffle really is. Pavarotti, as great a singer as he was, did not make Italy great. It already was great when Pavarotti came along. And it remains great today.

  • Sam's Hot Car Lot says:

    Pavarotti singing about thirty years ago with Nuccia Focile. Sadly, she never made it big. Does anyone know what happened to her?

  • Robert says:

    I’m wondering… had they been putting a winter time ice rink there before the statue was erected?

  • Joel Kemelhor says:

    Modern directors might call it “opera re-imagined” — in this case Pavarotti as the tenor lead in SIBERIA by Giordano.

  • ZandoA1 says:

    20 years after Pavarotti’s death, no other tenor sounds remotely like him. In fact they all sound generic and go to the same ‘international school’ of opera singing.

  • Amar says:

    In your photo, The King of the High C’s looks to be at the center of the action. Not a bad place to be, if you ask me.

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