Lucianno Pavarotti made his professional debut in 1961 when he was 26 in a performance of La Boheme. He and the other soloists had won a contest to appear in the performance with conductor Francesco Molinari-Pradelli. A recording exists of that debut , a recording arranged by the novelist Vladimir Nabokov, whose son Dimitri sang Colline, and we will have excerpts of Pavarotti's singing from that debut.
Not many dispute the fact Pavarotti did his best singing from the early 60's into the early 1980's, and that is the period that most of the music will come from on this program. The latter part of his career brought huge celebrity, highlighted by the globally televised three tenor concerts beginning in 1990 with Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo at the FIFA world cup competition. His last public performance was at the FIFA world cup in 2006, a year before his death in September of 2007. He sang one aria, Nessun Dorma, and that aria will close the program this week.