Privacy, Pavarotti Style

Luciano Pavarotti's annual retreat to his native region is what all vacations should be: a spiritual refreshment.

The tenor spends a month with his family in a converted farmhouse overlooking the Adriatic in Pesaro. Here, after eleven hectic months as a public performer, he can be a private man, an Italian papa. After a whirl of cosmopolitan continent-hopping, he can return to his cultural roots.

But even Pavarotti's relaxation has a carnival air. Privacy for him means being surrounded by a mere dozen or so people. The entrance to his property has a closed-circuit TV camera for screening visitors, yet the gate is rarely shut, except at night, because nobody wants to be bothered with all that opening and closing. Musicians like Conductor Claudio Abbado, in-laws, the curator of Pesaro's Rossini Museum, journalists, the local --the guests constantly come and go.

The Metropolitan's Gildo Di Nunzio is on hand to help Pavarotti learn his new role in La Gioconda. Beyond the big French doors the sea glistens invitingly, and the opera houses of the world seem far away. Yes, work must be done; but first, perhaps, a spin in the cabin cruiser? A workman arrives to fix the pool; he must be invited in for a glass of wine. The three Pavarotti daughters wander through, or his wife Adua settles in a corner; an interlude of familial chatting and joking is irresistible.

Pavarotti's method of appeasing Di Nunzio's sense of duty is to whistle a phrase, to show that he is at least thinking about music. Even while cavorting in the pool, Pavarotti whistles. Finally they get to the keyboard for some detailed drilling on the score. But soon a pungent aroma drifts in from the kitchen where Anna, the cook, is at work. "The day is a crescendo reaching its climax at lunch," says Di Nunzio. "Lunch is very important. Luciano will be singing a phrase, and abruptly he gets up, still singing, and walks away. Luciano and the phrase disappear into the kitchen." If Di Nunzio paces restlessly past the kitchen door, Pavarotti looks up smilingly from a steaming saucepan--and whistles.

Later, on the terrace near a stone fountain he designed himself, Pavarotti presides boisterously over a table that rarely has fewer than 14 or 16 guests around it. Over plates of polenta (cornmeal porridge), sausage and pork in a thick gravy, washed down with Lambrusco, the talk moves from local politics to musical gossip: the burglary of Herbert von Karajan's Saint-Tropez villa, or the scheduling problems caused by the love affair of two internationally known singers.

In the afternoon, Pavarotti attacks his easel. Three years ago, a fan in Chicago gave him a set of oil paints after seeing him portray the artist Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca. He taught himself to paint large, naif landscapes in blazing colors, most of them based on postcard photos of places he has never seen.

A young Italian soprano arrives from Udine with her American husband to audition for Pavarotti. After an aria and a few exercises, he says he cannot evaluate her voice because her notes are produced from the chest without proper support. "A baby crying is a perfect demonstration of correct vocal technique," he tells her. "The baby chooses a note that is comfortable and can cry all night without tiring or getting a sore throat. Why? Because it produces the sound in the natural way, by pushing it up from the diaphragm."

Occasionally Pavarotti will gather a few guests into his gray Mercedes for the two-hour drive to Modena. There, in the cobbled square in front of the city's handsome Romanesque cathedral, he is greeted familiarly as "Luciano" by seemingly hundreds of old friends and schoolmates, and as "Signor Tenore" by everyone else. His father, 65, still sings in the church choir and local chorus--and now enjoys the status of a recording artist, thanks to a few small roles on Pavarotti's albums. Both parents will join the Pavarotti menage soon. Luciano plans to settle everybody in a newly purchased 17th century mansion, which has a poplar-lined avenue leading into its twelve acres.

As his summer idyl comes to an end, Pavarotti faces up to two realities. There is a new season to be taken on, and new poundage to be taken off. He undergoes his customary blood test, takes his own blood pressure and pronounces himself fit but "rather overweight." Then he flies off to London for recording sessions, leaving his family to readjust after a period of revolving solely around him. He calls Adua later to see how things are going. "Wonderful," she sighs wearily. "The girls and I are about to start our vacation."

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