Friday, May 15, 2020

FRIDAY MUSIC: Pavarotti's granddaughters (not)

Much obliged to Wiggia for sending this first video which set me on a quest to unravel a mystery. The clip he sent me was entitled "Pavarotti's 11 year old grandaughter singing." It wasn't a YouTube clip and I wasn't sure how to transfer it. I went looking for it on YT and found it but with a different title (see below).

So why would it be labelled as Pavarotti's granddaughter? To attract more viewers seems to be the obvious answer but with the quality and the power of that voice she does appear to be 'channelling' the spirit of il Maetro!

Her name is Amira Willighagen and she is Dutch. And she does indeed have a wonderful voice (not helped here by the sickly mush of Andre Rieu and his 'orchestra')



Here is another young singer and, again, the claim is that she is the granddaughter of Pavarotti and that is written on screen throughout. She is called Mariam Urushadze and was eight years old at the time of this performance from the television show 'Nichieri' (Georgia's Got Talent) in November 2016. (The song is "Caruso" written by Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla in 1986. It is dedicated to Enrico Caruso.)



This next video cleverly puts together Pavarotti and Amira singing live and 'together' in montage. One of the comments states that Amira was aged nine when singing live on stage!



Yet another one claiming to be 'the granddaughter of......' (although to be fair it says daughter in the title) This fifteen year old is called Sislena Caparossa from the Dominican Republic and performs Nessun Dorma in this Spanish TV show.



Sislena Caparossa once more, this time singing in the Parliament of the Dominican Republic. I can see from the comments that she was born on Tenerife and it is her father who is from Republica Dominicana and her mother is Spanish. Her voice here is a bit wobbly but with a good voice coach she will become a very polished performer.



Finally a nine year old Lucia Garcia sings for Montserrat Caballé. The longer version of this encounter has captions on screen saying that Lucia had been singing since the age of six and it had been her dream to meet and sing for Montserrat Caballé.



The final video makes no claim that there is any connection with Luciano Pavarotti. So which one is his granddaughter? Well none of them actually. Pavarotti had one granddaughter and so far as anyone knows she doesn't sing!

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