Pavarotti skewered by manager's memoir

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2004

NEW YORK (AFP) — A newly published memoir by Luciano Pavarotti's manager paints a less than flattering portrait of the great Italian tenor as a spoiled superstar whose ego was matched only by his girth.

And while the "The King and I" by Herbert Breslin focuses on his 35-year business relationship with Pavarotti, it also shoots some pointed arrows at the reputations of other members of the operatic pantheon.

German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf looked like "a cleaning woman", Australian diva Joan Sutherland was "pretty dopey," and German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau "gave the impression that his bodily emanations, shall we say, didn't smell."

As for Pavarotti, Breslin's book -- written with music critic Anne Midgette -- covers the course of a...