Luciano Pavarotti - The first among the 3 tenors

The first time , I heard about Luciano Pavarotti was when the Pavarotti and Friends concert was aired on STARTV. It was the time when television opened up a whole new world. There was this craze for Yanni , and then the Spice girls ( yeah yeah , I listened to them , when we got cable connection for the first time in my house). But there was always something special about Luciano Pavarotti. Celine Dion for some reason was a pretty known face at that time in India ( I believe this was even before Titanic was released) and I found her singing while I was flipping through thr channels. And then there was this booming voice in the background - and the camera focused on a portly man. I was naive to believe that Celine Dion was the star and he was just accompanying. But after a couple of songs I realised that Mr.Pavarotti ( note the respect that I had after juat 2 songs) was the main act and others where just making fleeting appearances.Over the years , Pavarotti became synonymous with Opera and for all quizzers weak in Opera and the likes , if an operatic piece was played it was always Pavarotti. Such was his influence - Just like the villagers in Morning raga think any song with beats in a Michael Jackson song - our guesses were always Pavarotti . BBC recently had this obit. for Pavarotti and there have been many obits. on blogs and the papers , but no amount of writing will ever capture the magic of the voice. R.I.P Mr. Pavarotti.