The Opera in Paul Sorvino

Paul Sorvino was an opera singer who acted. He used to tell people that, in so many words, and you knew from his work that he carried an opera inside of him. Like a lot of East Coast Italian American actors of the Silent Generation, he often got typecast as cops and criminals, but he made the most of his assignments. Barrel-chested with a piercing stare, Sorvino always found ways to bring specificity and surprise to roles that might’ve seemed vague on the page — even when his characters were better described as controlled, contained, repressed.