Opera Stars.

During the 1970s tenor Luciano Pavarotti became a darling of the American public, the best-known and best-loved opera performer since Enrico Caruso. As the celebrity frenzy escalated in the 1980s, careful marketing made Pavarotti more popular than ever, as familiar to most Americans as any movie or pop star. He appeared on talk shows and television specials and in commercials for American Express and his album Pavarotti's Greatest Hits! (1980). With his outsize charm, talent, and girth, he became the best-selling classical artist of the decade. In 1980 alone four of the top-selling classical albums were by Pavarotti. As a stage performer he found joy playing himself, and even a disastrous acting debut in the 1982 movie Yes, Giorgio! (critics cried, "No, Luciano!") could not tarnish his superstar status. His immediate successor as "tenor of the moment," Placido Domingo, seemed to follow in...