Luciano Pavarotti: Obituary, by Tom Sutcliffe, The Guardian, (6 September 2007)
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Luciano Pavarotti, who has died aged 71 of pancreatic cancer, grew up in the 1940s listening to the previous golden generation of tenor stars on record and radio... His family were enthusiastically musical and, aged four, he was apparently standing on the kitchen table singing the Duke of Mantua's La donna é mobile from Rigoletto as a party trick. He modelled himself on what he heard, and used recordings to take account of the competition, dead or alive, throughout his career. Nature equipped him with one of the most individual, unmistakable and beautiful voices there has been.

— Lucian on Obituary

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Luciano Pavarotti, who has died aged 71 of pancreatic cancer, grew up in the 1940s listening to the previous golden generation of tenor stars on record and radio... His family were enthusiastically musical and, aged four, he was apparently standing on the kitchen table singing the Duke of Mantua's La donna é mobile from Rigoletto as a party trick. He modelled himself on what he heard, and used recordings to take account of the competition, dead or alive, throughout his career. Nature equipped him with one of the most individual, unmistakable and beautiful voices there has been." in the context of "Luciano Pavarotti: Obituary, by Tom Sutcliffe, The Guardian, (6 September 2007)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Obituary" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Lucian

About Lucian

Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – c. 190) was a satirist and philosopher, born at Samosata in the Syrian province of the Roman Empire (now in Turkey), but in later life resident in Athens. His works are written in the Attic dialect of Greek.