This moment is truly masterful and unique, encapsulating a rare slice of musical history that has never been surpassed.

The idea of a young Luciano Pavarotti singing alongside Mario Lanza seems almost too surreal to be true, especially considering the fact that Pavarotti was only 15 years old in 1950, far too old to have been featured in The Great Caruso film, which was filmed well before he had even begun his own operatic career.

What’s more surprising is the revelation that the 12 or 13-year-old boy singing alongside Lanza in this video isn’t Pavarotti at all but is actually lip-syncing to the voice of soprano Jacqueline Allen.

The video depicting Mario Lanza performing “Ave Maria” alongside a young boy has been widely circulated online, with many attributing the child to a young Luciano Pavarotti. However, this claim is not supported by historical records.

Luciano Pavarotti was born in 1935, and by 1950, when this performance was recorded, he was 15 years old—too old to have been the child in the video.

Moreover, Pavarotti was living in Modena, Italy, far from Hollywood, making it unlikely for him to have participated in this American film production

The actual boy in the video is Michael Collins, a child actor who appeared in the 1950 film The Great Caruso, in which Mario Lanza portrayed the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso.

The voice heard in the duet was not Michael Collins’s but that of American soprano Jacqueline Allen (1925–2009), who provided the vocal performance for the scene.

This practice of dubbing was common in film productions of that era.

While the notion of a young Pavarotti singing with Lanza is a captivating story, it is a piece of musical mythology rather than fact.

Nonetheless, the performance remains a testament to the enduring legacy of Mario Lanza’s artistry and the timeless beauty of “Ave Maria.”​

For a closer look at this performance, you can watch the video here:

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