William Lockwood booked tenor at McCarter in 1980
By Michael Redmond Lifestyle Editor
His is one of the unforgettable images of 20th-century show business — that bear of a man, bearded and richly dressed, clutching a white handkerchief, mouth wide open, shooting tones of molten gold into the stratosphere. To millions of people throughout the world, Luciano Pavarotti, “the king of high Cs,” was opera personified. To William W. Lockwood Jr., Mr. Pavarotti was a colleague and friend.
The great tenor, who died Thursday of pancreatic cancer, age 71, sang in Princeton only once, but it was a red-letter occasion for all who remember it. It was 1980, and Mr. Pavarotti was at the height of his powers. At that point in his career, the world’s reigning tenor was to be heard in opera houses or arenas, on radio or television — not in a theater seating a thousand people or so. But Pavarotti came to Princeton to do just that, because Bill Lockwood asked him to.
”I remember that evening very well,” said Mr. Lockwood, a lifelong Princetonian who has been programming events at McCarter Theatre since his youth. “Luciano was at his peak, and the occasion was a great coup for me, personally. I knew him well enough to ask him — and his manager, Herbert Breslin — if he would come. For Luciano to come to little old McCarter was a big concession on his part, and a very big favor to me.”
At the time, Mr. Lockwood was executive director of programming for Lincoln Center, the man behind the scenes at the Mostly Mozart Festival, which he created, and the Great Performers series, which he ran.
”I was involved in a number of Pavarotti’s concerts, in various contexts, including a steady succession of televised concerts, including the ones with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne,” Mr. Lockwood said.
He reminisced about planning sessions at Mr. Pavarotti’s hotel suite, where the tenor would sit behind “a huge desk” and consider “scenarios or outlines that we thought would make for a good concert and telecast. And he would say yes and no and offer his own ideas. ‘I want to perform with so-and-so,’ he would say, and we would usually reply, ‘They’re probably not available.’ Then Luciano would just pick up the phone, get the artist on the line, and say ‘This is Luciano Pavarotti and I would be honored if you would perform with me’ on such-and-such a date. And if they weren’t available, they became available.”
While Pavarotti’s artistry would have won acclaim at any time, Mr. Lockwood believes, television maximized his impact, transforming him into a global phenomenon.
In 1977, for instance, when Pavarotti starred in the first televised performance of the Metropolitan Opera’s “La Boheme” on PBS, four million people tuned in. Overnight, more Americans saw “La Boheme” than had seen all the live performances of the opera that had taken place in the United States since 1896, when Puccini’s opera first took the stage.
”Those were great times,” Mr. Lockwood said. “Luciano became to opera what Nureyev and Baryshnikov were to dance, Van Cliburn and Itzhak Perlman to music. He became the ultimate primo singer of his day.”
In addition to serving as McCarter Theatre’ special programming director, which encompasses the booking of classical music, dance, jazz, world music, world dance, and special events, Mr. Lockwood is about to mark his 10th year as a consultant to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. And he also serves as a consultant to the Kimmel Arts Center in Philadelphia.
”I wear three hats,” he joked.
Over the years, Mr. Lockwood has attracted quite a roster of talents to McCarter, including Tony Bennett, Princess Grace of Monaco, Cary Grant, Philip Glass and Hal Holbrook. But Pavarotti is in a category all his own.
”If you had to make a list of the 10 most unforgettable people you’ve ever met, he would certainly be on mine. And I think that anyone who had known him would say the same,” Mr. Lockwood said.

