The most interesting thing about Ron Howard’s “Pavarotti” isn’t so much its celebration of the world’s most famous tenor, but rather the story of how that tenor brought his craft into the cultural mainstream. “Pavarotti” is the story of opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti, who rose from humble Italian obscurity to blossom into one of the world’s most celebrated singers.

Howard’s film opens with a rare piece of archival footage that shows an impromptu performance in a remote opera hall deep in Brazil. Handheld camera work betrays the intimacy of the moment, witnessed by only a handful of travelers, yet Pavarotti delivers the same sincere performance he would deliver to a vast stadium audience.