We were recording Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore at the Manhattan Center ballroom on 34th Street. My worthy chess opponent (for 30 years, no less) was Jerry Kagan, a Met cellist and master violin bow-maker, but fortunately for me, not quite a chess master. For each hour of recording, thanks to our union’s Local 802, musicians must have a 20-minute recess. This may barely be time enough to ingest a pastry and gulp down a cup of coffee, but for a pair of chess addicts it seems like a blissful eternity.
Jerry and I were deadlocked in a drawish Ruy Lopez opening. Suddenly the squares of my miniature magnetic chess-set were darkened by an immense shadow. We looked up and beheld Pavarotti, huddled over us like a giant Buddha, sitting with arms akimbo, while periodically clearing his throat with that nasal mucous-rattling rasp characteristic of tenors. If he were not the great Pavarotti, I reflected, that unpleasant noise would be an annoying distraction and render him, in short, simply a pest.
Yet his request, in a small, soft voice—“Can I please maybe play the winner?”—was so humble (particularly for a tenor) that instead of being a nuisance, his mere presence as an onlooker transformed our dull game into an exciting event, wherein we were the performers and Pavarotti was a fan. Moreover, though Jerry and I were quite evenly matched, I managed to eke out a win, which awarded me the honor of accepting the great tenor’s challenge.
Like a child attacking an open toy chest, Luciano feverishly reset the chessmen, so we could squeeze in a few opening moves before the recess ended. An attractive young lady, who I believe was his assistant, suddenly appeared with a big bottle of Evian, which Pavarotti gulped down. She whispered into my ear, “Please do not beat him. He is very sensitive and hates to lose.”
Now I have never dumped a game of chess in my life. Moreover, once I even won a Manhattan Chess Club Class-B tournament (no Bobby Fischers in that bunch), and used to enjoy killing my pal, Jerry, until he caught on to my meager bag of chess traps and started beating me. Yet I did realize that a superstar like Pavarotti must retain his ego in order to function effectively onstage. I mean, if you damage a great tenor’s self-esteem by beating him—in chess, tennis, love, or anything else in life—you undermine the very essence of his being. And for a mere second-fiddler to beat the world’s greatest tenor at a game he obviously loved to play would be unforgivable.
On the other hand, I reflected, maybe Pavarotti was a ringer. Perhaps he memorized chess openings and traps along with his librettos, and maybe even won first prize in a Class-A international tournament. In that case, I could play my best game, then lose graciously, compliment Luciano, and the great tenor’s ego would be unimpaired.
My anxieties were soon dispelled, however. Pavarotti opened with white-pawn-to-king-four, a perfectly decent move, but one also favored by children and beginners. I replied with black-pawn-to-queen’s-bishop-four, a so-called Sicilian Defense, which I figured might just tickle his ethnic sensibility. Alas! Three quick moves later he was hopelessly lost, with a trapped knight and an exposed king.
I panicked. The tenor was a patzer, but I desperately tried to let him win. I left pieces en prise, but he failed to capture them. I proffered pawns, bishops, even my queen, yet he blithely ignored my gifts and managed to get himself checkmated.
Mercifully, the recess ended and we resumed recording. Pavarotti was in superb voice. While I fiddled repeated eighth notes, a vague terror possessed me: How could I force the great tenor to win a game? Or, even more perplexing, how could I prevent him from losing? Indeed, for every bad move I made, he somehow came up with a worse move. Was it possible, I thought, that the world’s greatest tenor was also the world’s worst chess player?
Still, if he hated to lose, Luciano certainly never showed it. On the contrary, he was the best sport, the most gracious loser I’d ever encountered in all my years as a bloodthirsty hustler and tournament player. (Jerry is like me: a good sport when winning, but a monster when losing.)
During the next recess, Pavarotti politely refused my generous offer of a draw in another pathetic game, in which he would be mated in three moves. “Non fatte la carita, prego,” he said, with a wink and a smile as he resigned. While hastily resetting the chessmen, he spoke warmly of his family abroad and inquired about mine. He began addressing me as “maestro,” and I dared to call him “Lucio.”
By the time the two-hour dinner break arrived, I was famished, and a discount coupon for a meal in a nearby Japanese eatery was burning a hole in my pocket. My hungry colleagues quickly evacuated the cavernous recording room, and I found myself alone with Pavarotti—and the chess set. He was humming happily to himself, contemplating a trapped queen, while I, stomach growling, fumbled in my pocket for the discount coupon. I offered a meek apology for adjourning the game, but Pavarotti extended both beefy arms in protest.
“No, no, maestro!” he cried, “I have plenty food for us! So you please stay and we play chess, yes?” From under his tall wooden stool, he produced a Zabar’s shopping bag. He fished out a stack of Saran-wrapped sandwiches and thrust one at me over the chess board: a thick slab of pink ham on rye, fat trimmed, no butter or mayo, no mustard, no lettuce, just ham on naked dry bread. I saw my sushi dinner go out the window, I was salivating and my mouth was dry. He handed me a bottle of tepid Evian water, then took a gargantuan bite out of his sandwich.
Pavarotti reached out, pinky extended, using a crumb-laden index finger and thumb to move his doomed queen directly into a death trap. For a while, only the chomping of rye bread and the gurgling of mineral water broke the silence in the empty hall. Pavarotti wiped his mouth with a Zabar’s napkin, and his damp forehead with his immense multicolored kerchief. He wagged his head sadly over the trapped queen. Suddenly he began to hum, almost imperceptibly at first, then poco a poco the hum became a sotto voce melody, which I perceived as Gounod’s “Ave Maria.”
As his chess moves grew weaker and weaker, his voice grew stronger and stronger. From pianissimo to piano, to mezzoforte, then a crescendo, until finally the room echoed with the full Pavarottian instrument, that flawless intonation, intense passionate vibrato, that heart-rending Stradivarius tone utterly unique in the tenorial universe.
I was transfixed, transported. In this celestial presence, my only wish was that just one enterprising recording-engineer had the sense to skip dinner, to capture for posterity this fragment of vocal history with a pirate tape. But alas, those well-paid Philistines had abandoned their tape decks and microphones for, I imagined, the succulent sushi and sashimi I had forsaken.
At last, sadly, Luciano’s a cappella recital ended, while my well-fed colleagues straggled into the room and began tuning and noodling on their instruments.
“Maestro,” sighed the tenor, you have de-strroyed me, eh. But the pain is good— because now I sing ‘Una Furtiva Lagryma’ even better. I am suf-ferring . . . my poor queen!”
Our conductor, James Levine, mounted the podium with trepidation. Luciano’s lust for perfection had worn down many a maestro with many repeated takes of an aria before he was satisfied. Yet now, after a perfectly played bassoon introduction, Pavarotti sang “Una Furtiva” with such pathos and stunning phrasing, that maestro Levine could only beam with joy and wave numerous thumbs-up at him.
When the recording session finally ended for the day, Pavarotti, vanquished in chess but vocally triumphant, beckoned to me. On the wooden back of my chess set he scribbled a compliment in Italian with a black marker-pen, misspelled my name, then signed his. A week later, master-craftsman Kagan attached a Plexiglas cover over it for eternal preservation, and to this day, Pavarotti’s lost chess game remains frozen in time, untouched, exactly as it was when he sang that private concert for me—or was it merely a great tenor’s mournful addio to his fallen diva, the queen?
