Distant Harmony: Pavarotti in China

Down with diplomats! Up with tenors! Summits and accords pale compared with the power of song as proved by Luciano Pavarotti, whose golden pipes and seemingly limitless bonhomie won him the honor of being the first Westerner to perform at the 10,000-seat Great Hall of the People. Though Pavarotti rarely gets off the beaten path of the standard dignitary junket — see him bike! greet smiling school children! — Distant Harmony: Pavarotti in China director DeWitt Sage captures a number of unrehearsed moments in the well-orchestrated 1986 visit. Pavarotti's encouragement of a croaking fellow tenor during a grueling master class is a resonant comment on the still-delicate state of the Chinese's insistent — and often unfulfilled — need for self-expression. A