Pavarotti's ex publicist, Herbert Breslin dismissed several years ago, writes the typical "revealing" book that must be "muck racking" to sell.

However the revelations of "personality" flaws are so trivial, that it makes you want to appreciate Pavarotti even more.

Breslin loses all credibility when he infers that it is more important to find the "next" Breslin than the "next" Pavarotti!!!!

He says in one breath that he "made" Pavarotti, and one is driven to ask, why does he not make another???

Then contradicts himself when he then says:"I couldn't make another Pavarotti. It takes a Pavarotti to make a Pavarotti. And no other Pavarotti is going to come along."

Breslin, you are a bombastic buffoon of operatic proportions

The meticulously elegant German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf looked like a "cleaning woman" when she wasn't on stage. An equally celebrated soprano, Joan Sutherland, was really "pretty dopey" if you had to talk with her. And Plácido Domingo? "In his dreams, Plácido never had a voice like [Pavarotti]."

It will likely be one of the most talked-about musical books of the fall season; it will certainly be one of the nastiest. Moreover, this rancorous "dish" comes not from a Metropolitan Opera standee (from whom caustic commentary is expected) but from one of the most successful businessmen in classical music.

Herbert Breslin, who has served as publicity agent or manager to a cast of clients that includes all four of the aforementioned artists, as well as Marilyn Horne, Itzhak Perlman, Leonard Slatkin and the late Georg Solti, has written his autobiography, in collaboration with New York Times music critic Anne Midgette.

Slated for publication in October by Doubleday, Breslin's book is titled "The King and I: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti's Rise to Fame by His Manager, Friend and Sometime Adversary." An advance copy was obtained by the Washington Post, and it offers considerable insight into the fiercely competitive world of opera, grand and not so.

Pavarotti was Breslin's most celebrated client — they were professional associates for more than three decades — but since their unusually public split two years ago, the tenor seems to have turned into Breslin's great white whale, to be harpooned whenever possible. Breslin calls the book "the story of a very beautiful, simple, lovely guy who turned into a very determined, aggressive and somewhat unhappy superstar," and his portrait is a devastating one.

The tenor is presented as a petulant child who calls his associates "stupido" and other terms of endearment; who denounces Domingo as a "black marketeer" over supposed cruelties to José Carreras; who insists upon being chauffeured a single block from his New York apartment to his dentist. Fearful of the food he will be served on a tour of China, he packs up an entire restaurant and has it flown over to feed him during his visit.

He forgets (or never bothers to learn) words, approximates phrases and lip-syncs concerts when he is tired. The Pavarotti in Breslin's memoir is a boorish lecher, one capable of describing Nicoletta Mantovani (who would become his second wife) to the press as "the favorite in my harem."

According to Breslin, Pavarotti "has to have gained and lost more than 5,000 pounds" over the course of their years together. In his disastrous screen debut, the romantic comedy "Yes, Giorgio" (1982), Pavarotti was so concerned with decorum that he "wouldn't do anything that could make people laugh at him. Since he was cast as the lead in a comedy, this became quite a problem."

Breslin has never suffered from false modesty (indeed, at one point, he says he is more concerned about finding the "next" Herbert Breslin than the "next" Pavarotti). "Nobody knows classical music and the business of classical music better than I do," he informs the reader. "You want proof? I guided Luciano Pavarotti's career, the greatest career in classical music, for 36 years."

In his prime, Pavarotti was, after all, a very great musician, something even Breslin will admit. "I helped make Luciano Pavarotti," Breslin wrote. "But I couldn't make another Pavarotti. It takes a Pavarotti to make a Pavarotti. And no other Pavarotti is going to come along."

calendarlive.com: Pavarotti's ex-manager takes a caustic tenor in tell-all book
http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/
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