Nessun dorma, big Luciano

Few voices have had such an impact on me as Luciano Pavarotti's. It was with some shock that I learned of his passing.

Nigel Britto

The greatest Operatic tenor of our generation was a gentleman of rare talent as well as a man who did his best to make the world a better place. With a powerful voice touched by the divine, he was the first man to take opera to the masses, and indeed the first tenor to capture the public imagination.

Even though toward the end his voice had lost some of the power, it was still extremely powerful and incomparable to anyone else's. You didn't need to be a fan of the genre to understand Pavarotti. You just needed to be a human being with a heart, and that's all it took for the voice of Luciano Pavarotti to carry you away.

Even during his performance at the Winter Olympics 2006 at Torino, he put aside his cancer and poured his heart and soul into his trademark song, Nessun Dorma. The passion and intensity on his face spoke for itself. His mind-boggling performance at age 71 prompted the NBC commentator to say, "And the Master brings the house down." The great tenor's performance received the loudest and the longest ovation of the evening. Little did anyone know that that magical performance would be the last time the great Luciano Pavarotti would be performing in this world before he moved on.

On a personal note, Pavarotti's was the only operatic voice that appealed to me. It was my dream to *someday* play the guitar for him, a dream that was shattered after his death. Though his colleague tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras have more than competent voices, Pavarotti will remain the man who got people interested in opera that they listened to it and appreciated it, and would definitely rate as my favorite Opera singer.

It is awful to think that he has gone forever from this world. Yet the Maestro lives in our hearts as he joins the choir of angels as they sing their unending hymns of Praise to the master of all Music, and we should thank God that he gave us the chance to listen to his most amazing musical creation for the time He did.

RIP, Luciano. You will never be forgotten.