In September 1994, a famous duet of a Neapolitan love song had two of the best tenor voices ever recorded.
The second of Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti’s well-known charity gala performances took place in Modena. Andrea Bocelli, who was only 36 at the time, had been asked to do the duet by Pavarotti, who was nearly 25 years his senior.
Composer Maurizio Morante wrote “Notte e piscatore” specifically for the tenor duo earlier that year. It would appear on a live “Pavarotti & Friends” CD the following year.
In the duet, the two voices blend incredibly well together, with Pavarotti’s powerful strength and a youthful Bocelli’s lyrical elegance.
Literally ‘The Night of the Fisherman’ in English, it’s a song of longing and a lost love. It almost makes you recall that beautiful line in Shawshank Redemption, from Morgan Freeman’s character, Red… “I have no idea to this day what they were singing about.
“Truth is, I don’t want to know. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it.”
Bocelli performed at three of Pavarotti’s charity concerts, and after the elder tenor died of pancreatic cancer in 2007, Bocelli was there once again to sing at a tribute gala.
In 2015, Bocelli told The Telegraph: “Pavarotti loved me. He called me [to perform] at his wedding and his wife called me again for his funeral.”
The younger tenor’s career was launched thanks to Pavarotti, and a song originally intended for him. Italian rockstar Zucchero crossed paths with Bocelli in 1992, when he held auditions for tenors to make a demo tape of his song ‘Miserere’, which had been intended for Pavarotti.
Pavarotti heard Bocelli singing on the demo, and urged Zucchero to have Bocelli sing it instead of him. Luciano told Zucchero: “Thank you for writing such a wonderful song. Yet you do not need me to sing it – let Andrea sing ‘Miserere’ with you, for there is no one finer.” Finally, they recorded it as a trio.
Soon after ‘Miserere’ was recorded, Bocelli signed a record deal aged 34.
Throughout his career, Bocelli recorded a lot of the same Italian operatic repertoire as his mentor, from Puccini’s ‘Nessun dorma’ to Verdi’s ‘La donna è mobile’, and both were signed to the same record label, Universal.
In 2017, Bocelli told Alghad: “Even though he left us 10 years ago, his voice is always alive in everyone’s heart including mine.
“I have had the privilege of knowing him and sharing many memories with him, and each one of them is just as strong and alive today.”
Now, Bocelli’s voice has lowered into more of a baritone range, and of course Pavarotti left us in 2007. This remains one of those special duets between two legendary voices, and when two remarkable eras of vocal music were together in harmony.