CLASSICAL GAS (1994)

Opera, these days, is a lot like dinosaur rock. A generation ago, Italian fans screamed insults at singers they didn't like and performances could get pretty wild. But now Tosca and La Traviata are yesterday's music and opera stars are much like classic rockers Phil Collins and Paul McCartney-careful, sleek, and safe.

Which is why the bubbly new 3 Tenors sequel, an extravaganza starring Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti, is such a surprise: The guys actually seem to be having fun. They sound much livelier, in fact, than they did four years ago on their first joint outing. That, of course, became the best-selling classical album of all time, but brush away the hype, and what's left is a musical vacuum. Carreras sang like a computer composite, the mathematical average of every tenor. Domingo was suave but impersonal. Pavarotti, a genuinely great tenor, sounded empty, as if he just played one on TV.

But now you'd think the boys had taken steroids. What inspired them? Maybe it's because they're soccer fans. (They're European, after all, and their concert was staged as a prelude to the World Cup's final game.) Maybe getting televised to a billion people made them feel like pop stars.

Or perhaps they were happy not to sing opera. There's hardly any on the album; instead, the tenors indulge themselves with Italian and Spanish songs, show tunes, and pop standards like ''Moon River.'' You can't say they're good at it; their accents are a giggle, and they don't remotely catch the easy informality of a Tony Bennett. But for opera singers, these songs (vocally, anyway) are easy. The tenors pour out mindless floods of vocal gold and-even if classical purists think they've sold out-seem to be having the time of their lives.

Carreras even finds a sexy muskiness in ''My Way'' that makes his version almost sound legitimate. Domingo turns ''Granada'' into an irresistible seduction. Does the song actually mean anything? Who cares?

Pavarotti, meanwhile, shows us why-if anyone were ranking history's greatest tenors-he coulda been a contender. His voice sounds nourishing, like rain after a long drought; he shapes melodies with instinctive grace. His peak comes in ''Nessun Dorma'' from Puccini's Turandot, which he also sang, less convincingly, on the earlier disc. Here he plays with the words, savoring each one as if he'd made up the aria on the spot. At the end, he cuts loose with a high note so visceral that even the otherwise blankly competent orchestra wakes up. Taken as a whole, this record isn't much more than a happy stunt. But for one brief moment, at least, Pavarotti brings the dying art of opera back to life.

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