Puccini aria popularized by Pavarotti / THU 4-21-22 / Maker of Z-cars once / Fish with long snout / Car whose logo features a coiled green serpent / Catastrophic weather event potentially caused by a meteor crash

Constructor: Max Chen Lauring

Relative difficulty: Medium (hard before you get the theme, but then easy *because* you got the theme ... so Medium)

THEME: SOLAR / ECLIPSE (30D: With 41-Across, a celestial event ... or a hint to four squares in this puzzle) — four black squares must be interpreted as representing the letter string "SUN" for the answers that run into and out of those black squares to make any sense. Thus you have four "SUN"s which have been "eclipsed" by black squares, i.e. four (symmetrical!) SOLAR / ECLIPSEs .. 

Theme answers:

• SAYSUNCLE / MISSUNIVERSE (4D: Surrenders / 20A: Annual pageant winner)
• DATSUN / "NESSUN DORMA" (22A: Maker of Z-cars / 13D: Puccini aria popularized by Pavarotti)
• SUNNIS / MEGATSUNAMI (56A: Followers of the largest denomination of Islam / 34D: Catastrophic weather event potentially caused by a meteor crash)
• PLAYERSUNION / GOESUNDER (57A: Labor group for athletes / 45D: Receives an anesthetic, perhaps))

Word of the Day: "NESSUN DORMA" (13D) —

"Nessun dorma" (Italian: [nesˌsun ˈdɔrma]; English: "Let no one sleep") is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot (text by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni) and one of the best-known tenor arias in all opera. It is sung by Calaf, il principe ignoto (the unknown prince), who falls in love at first sight with the beautiful but cold Princess Turandot. Any man who wishes to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles; if he fails, he will be beheaded. In the aria, Calaf expresses his triumphant assurance that he will win the princess.

Although "Nessun dorma" had long been a staple of operatic recitals, Luciano Pavarotti popularised the piece beyond the opera world in the 1990s following his performance of it for the 1990 World Cup, which captivated a global audience. Both Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo released singles of the aria, with Pavarotti's reaching number 2 in the UK, and it appeared on the best selling classical album of all time, The Three Tenors in Concert. The Three Tenors, which includes José Carreras, performed the aria at three subsequent World Cup Finals, in 1994 in Los Angeles, 1998 in Paris, and 2002 in Yokohama. Since 1990, many crossover artists have performed and recorded it. The aria has been sung often in films and on television. (wikipedia)

• • •

Hello, hello. It is good to be back with you all and especially good to be back with, let's see, electricity, heat, running water. Also, functioning wifi, but I'll tell you, wifi means very very little compared to power and heat and water. I wasn't sitting around going "I miss scrolling the internet! Where's my Netflix!" I was, rather, going "it is dark and cold, this very much sucks. Guess I'll read a book by flashlight" (fittingly, and in no way ironically, I finished John Darnielle's DEVIL HOUSE during the blackout—highly recommended). Thanks very much to my regular guest blogger Malaika for filling in yesterday (as the power outage stretched into its second full day...) and thanks very Very much to Avery Sandstrum and Sammy Saperstien* for hearing my early-morning cry for (blog) help on Tuesday morning and coming to the rescue. Their write-up was a godsend (and delightful).  But now I'm back from my time in the cold and dark, and what do I have waiting for me as I return to the puzzle-blogging chair but a puzzle whose theme is THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LIGHT AND WARMTH. Cute, puzzle. Very cute. Actually (and now sincerely): Cute, puzzle. Very cute. As you can see in the grid screenshot above, my final answer was "I LIKE," and I kept the clue (67A: "Thumbs up from me!") in the shot because it felt like the first time where a screenshot could also function as a review. "Thumbs up from me!" Succinct, accurate. I realize that my "SUN" images look more like "stars" but, well, SUNs are stars, I'm told, so ... just use your imagination. I struggled maybe a little more than usual trying to turn up the gimmick today. Needed exactly one COSMO to get my brain on track—ironic, as in real life I have had a dry April (so far! the blackout really tested me!). From there, I made a bunch of crosses work until it was clear (from the "-" clues on the latter halves of the theme answers) that there was some kind of black square gimmick. I went from wanting the pageant winner to be MRS. [Something] to realizing it was MISSUNIVERSE, and there it was, the black hole SUN. Here's the moment I nabbed my first SUN:

Things went easier after that, though the cluing was ambiguous / tricky throughout, and though the SUNs ended up being symmetrical, I had no way of knowing that as I was solving, so everywhere I got even a little stuck, I felt like I was tiptoeing through a SUN minefield, trying to find the SUNs before they destroyed me. I thought they were hidden pretty ingeniously today, inside some unexpected places. "NESSUN DORMA"!!!? Wow. I wonder how many solvers just stared at those letters wondering how they made ... anything. What I like about "NESSUN DORMA" is that it is a crossword staple ... as a clue for ARIA. In fact, ARIA clues were how I learned that "NESSUN DORMA" even existed. And here it is on full display in the actual grid. Nice crossword life arc for "NESSUN DORMA." I had never heard of a MEGATSUNAMI, but it's a highly inferrable word, so no real problems there. I like that "NESSUN DORMA" crosses DATSUN because DATSUN eventually changed their name to ... NISSAN. I actually drove a NISSAN DORMA in high school ... made a funny high-pitched noise ... 

Fill-wise, things occasionally get dicey, but not in any way that made me mock cry out in mock pain. I am not (at all) a fan of SIKE (18D: "Only joking!," to a texter). Is this even real? You save one letter by writing SIKE instead of PSYCH. I don't get it. I mean, I get it, but I don't get it. Beyond that, there's a reasonably high level of crosswordese today (SONE EFTS ELIE IDYL AONE NOEND ERNE ERES ASST ESPO SLAV DER GAR ORONO ... wow, more than I thought), but I guess I was reasonably tolerant of the overfamiliar stuff because the gimmick was strong. Funny how a solid, well-executed theme can make you forget about fill deficiencies.

[I thought, "Why not clue SIKE as that former Browns QB?" but it turns out
I had his name wrong ...]

Five things:

• 23A: Hoover rival (ORECK) — I knew this was about vacuums (as opposed to, say, presidential contests), but I wrote in DYSON. Fun fact: I went to Bullard High School in Fresno, CA. There was also a Hoover High School in the district. So we were definitely "Hoover rivals." And like vacuums, we sucked (jk we were great, I just couldn't lay off the vacuum thing, my apologies, I've been cold and without power for days, forgive me)
• 28A: Like the "5" of "5 & 10" (LESSER) — kids, there used to be things called "5 and 10 stores" (or "five and dimes"). You call them Dollar Stores today, and they are Far, Far Less Charming. Woolworth's was a kind of five and dime (or so I infer from the Nanci Griffith song). The point is, this is what I was thinking of. But no, we're just dealing with the numbers themselves. Far, Far Less Charming (but tricky!)
• 34A: Repellent spray (MACE) — me: "DEET!" (which is not even a spray, but an ingredient *in* a spray...)
• 9D: Grp. established by 1992's Maastricht Treaty (THE E.U.) — There are few answers I like the look of *less* (in the grid) than THEEU. It's like a minor character in a bad scifi film. "THEEU, Klargo, Myxx ... bring in the earthling, and then ... release the space dragon!" (I said it was bad)
• 35D: Spiderlike (ARACHNOID) — when a young arachnid turns up at the bar without his wallet, he becomes ARACH NO I.D. It's science.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]