A young Pavarotti takes wing in Belfast’s Butterfly
On the evening of Tuesday 7 May, 1963, an enthusiastic crowd of opera lovers filed into the Grand Opera House in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for a production of Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. In the wings, nervously waiting to make his UK debut as a professional singer, was an unknown young Italian tenor. His name? Luciano Pavarotti.
Pavarotti had sung in the
