How many of us have friends in high places? Sure, there might be that top-flight donor to the arts, or the head of a multimillion-dollar restaurant empire, but how about someone even loftier? In 1989, Luciano Pavarotti was scheduled to sing in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore at the Academy of Music. As Dan Rottenberg wrote in the Broad Street Review, cracks were noticed in the ceiling of the venerable Academy only hours before the opera was to begin. The building was immediately closed, halting the performance.
Pavarotti was determined that the show go on, and a Philadelphia landmark in Logan Square caught his eye: the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. That said, Donizetti’s frothy comedy would hardly have been suitable for a Catholic sanctuary. Approval would be needed from Philadelphia’s archbishop, who was away and unreachable. WRTI’s Mike Bolton, a singer at the time, recalls Pavarotti saying: “Hold on, let me call the Pope.”
