By now its old news. Luciano Pavarotti is dead. I have to admit that I never had a fondness for opera. It all seems highly implausible that complicated stories and character development could be distilled into song. Friends of mine claim opera is the perfect art form because it fuses so many different art forms together into one seamless presentation. I have tried to embrace opera. I can appreciate it from a musical point of view, but still have a difficult time embracing it as the alpha and omega of high art. Thus, for me Pavarotti's passing is not about opera loosing one of its last great stars.
For me, Pavarotti's death is a loss larger in scope. Like so many people, Pavarotti's work with the Three Tenors and his larger than life personality introduced me to "classical" music, or at least what I thought was "classical" music. He was a cultural ambassador of the highest order and as I write this, I can't help but wonder how many other kids got to know "classical" music through his work.
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