With the exception of seeing a pack of monks chant its way to the top of the charts, was there anything stranger this year than watching July's 3 Tenors reunion concert? Broadcast live on PBS from L.A.'s Dodger Stadium before the concluding World Cup soccer game, it might as well have been the opening night of a major rock arena tour: a 180-foot stage flanked by pillars, a DiamondVision screen for those in the cheap seats, two 48-foot-high waterfalls, and souvenir stands dispensing high-priced T-shirts and knickknacks to a crowd of 50,000 (some of whom paid up to $1,000 each). All there to see three tuxedoed men, median age 52. Singing opera. Uh, is this earth? As a pop fan whose appreciation of classical music doesn't move far beyond Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and Keith Emerson's piano concerti, I'll leave the strict musical assessment of this performance to my classically trained colleague Greg Sandow (see page 82). But even if I can't appreciate opera, which leaves me colder than most death metal, I can appreciate a pop phenomenon, which the 3 Tenors concert surely is. In the show and its accompanying album, The 3 Tenors in Concert 1994 (Atlantic), the classical world has found a sequel worthy of Woodstock '94-and it only had to wait four years. Like that second rock festival, the performance repeats a gig that began as a simple concert and grew into a larger musical and cultural event than expected. In fact, after the 1991 joint concert of operatic warlords Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jose Carreras in Rome, their collection of opera McNuggets-Carreras Domingo Pavarotti-wound up becoming the best-selling classical album of all time, with nearly 10 million copies worldwide so far. Also like Woodstock '94, the 3 Tenors reunion was aware of its own significance and was thus a more staged, heavily marketed spectacle than its predecessor. The album will be accompanied by a promotional single(!), a long- form video, and point-of-purchase in-store merchandising (meaning that you may be assaulted by cardboard Domingos, Pavarottis, and Carrerases in record stores). An Atlantic executive says In Concert 1994 is being marketed ''just like a pop record.'' That pop sensibility extends beyond the packaging. The trio's first album only strayed from a classical repertoire with a medley that included West Side Story's ''Maria'' and Cats' ''Memory.'' In Concert 1994 still has plenty of heartily sung arias-Pavarotti reprises the first record's greatest hit, ''Nessun Dorma''-yet it also dips deeper into Americana. The three men, no strangers to mass taste, throw themselves into an unintentionally campy ''Those Were the Days'' and a ''Tribute to Hollywood'' that includes crowd pleasers like ''My Way'' bellowed in stiff operatic voices. Factor in a treacly choir that often threatens to overwhelm the stars, and the results are schlock, albeit of the highest-minded caliber-Jerry Vale with poundage. I can't see any of this thrilling classical purists, but that probably doesn't matter anymore. Opera now has as much mass appeal as it ever will, thanks to the first 3 Tenors album, the opera scene in Philadelphia, and Kathleen Battle guest-wailing on Janet Jackson's janet. The pull of all this is probably simple. At its purest, opera is unquestionably full of beauty and emotional unrestraint, two commodities not readily heard in pop nowadays. And even when pop is pretty-as in, say, the fast-rising late-starter album by Mazzy Star or Yanni's orchestral blather-it's numbed or sterile, as if expressing too much emotion in the too-cool '90s is a must to avoid. The music of Domingo, Pavarotti, Carreras, and conductor Zubin Mehta may not be the greatest opera-and it certainly isn't the best pop. However, it is a place where the power of old-fashioned songwriting and show-off spectacle provides a safe sanctuary from the noise just outside the stadium.
You Might Also Like
- Music Review 3 TENORS | Greg Sandow
- Music Commentary empty shell
- Music Review Carreras, Domingo, Pavarotti in Concert | Alan Rich
- Music News Remembering Luciano Pavarotti | Vanessa Juarez
- NEWS ROUNDUP Luciano Pavarotti dies at 71 | Mike Bruno
