Michael Gracey Shares Updates on New Musical About Luciano Pavarotti

Michael Gracey, director of the movie musical The Greatest Showman and 2024's Better Man, is closer to debuting his new musical about opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. At a recent master class at Italy’s Marateale Film Festival, the director shared updates about his plans to bring the musical to the New York stage, after working with Pavarotti's family and estate to find the right way to tell the story.

“The person who had the rights to do Pavarotti on the stage called me after he saw ‘The Greatest Showman,’ but they didn’t have a way into the story. So I went to Bologna to spend time with Pavarotti’s friends and family to see if I could work out a way into the story, which I did.” Though the musical missed its intended West End debut in 2023, Variety has confirmed that the production is now on track to come to New York, though no dates have been set. 

The musical was first announced in 2021. BroadwayWorld previously reported that the Pavarotti estate had granted the stage rights to Gracey, alongside Grammy Award-winner Jacob Collier, for the new show. It was also revealed at the time that the production was working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop new software designed to isolate Pavarotti's voice from recordings of his performances, with no instrumental accompaniment. The production's live singers will use their voices to recreate the accompaniment, singing arrangements that will simulate the many sounds of an orchestra.

Early reports indicated that the production would include a character named Sofia, a fictionalized version of the singer's daughter. With access to Pavarotti's fan mail, the production would recreate actual correspondence from his fans, with each letter corresponding with an aria or song sung by the opera star.

For the screen, Michael Gracey directed the 2017 hit musical The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman. He followed that up in 2021 with the documentary film Pink: All I Know So Far and, in 2024, released his biographical musical of British pop singer Robbie Williams, titled Better Man.