Luciano Pavarotti: 1935-2007

Just a month shy of his 72nd birthday, Luciano Pavarotti is dead. Lux aeterna luceat eis.

Jane Eaglen has a touching and warm obituary at Slate. Alex, at Wellsung, has a similarly personal remembrance, though not quite as personal as Ms. Eaglen's.

What will we do when all the big stars with voices to match are gone? I'd go so far as to ask, what are we going to do when all the great voices are gone?

James King, Birgit Nilsson, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and the rest have all taken their places in the choir eternal.

We still have their records, which might be the best testament of all. I've been listening, off and on, to Pavarotti's "Ingemisco" from that wild Solti recording of Verdi's Requiem with the Wiener Philharmoniker. (Decca, 1968) A glorious respite in the middle of a typhoon.