Podium performance

The moment the film caught something special in a French recording studio.

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It’s the best known of all the tenor arias, the one associated with sports ever since Luciano Pavarotti sang it ahead of the World Cup in 1990. Andrea Bocelli sang it at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics opening last month. It’s the one underscoring moments of triumph and tragedy in a dozen movies. It’s Nessun Dorma – None shall sleep – from act three of Puccini’s Turandot, but which has long since taken on a life of its own. It was also the title track of Pene Pati’s second solo album for Warner Classics. Director Rebecca Tansley was there to shoot the day he recorded it in a Bordeaux studio, among the city’s symphony orchestra and its opera chorus. Her film captures the false starts, the frustration, the dismay on Pati’s face as he chucks a pen at his lectern aft