Three Tenors in Concert Sat.

 ((20), pay-per-view, 8-10 p.m.)

By JEREMY GERARD

A Hoffmann Concerts production broadcast live from Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J., on USSB, Viewer's Choice and Request TV.
 
Performers: Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, Luciano Pavarotti; James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
 

George and Barbara Bush were in the audience, and so was New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, for the third go-around of Three Tenors, the concert performances by Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti that spawned one of the bestselling classical music CDs and videos of all time when they first got together six years ago.

Asserting that 3T3 would not generate a homevideo or CD, the current concert made only one U.S. stop, with the added frisson of James Levine (subbing for Zubin Mehta) conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, a band with which all three singers are intimately acquainted.

The ghost of Leonard Bernstein hovered above the packed stadium as Levine launched the concert with the sprightly overture from "Candide" and ended it, two hours later, with the three singers in a medley from "West Side Story." The chance to come full circle was lost with an inapt final encore of "New York, New York"-- not the great song Bernstein wrote with Betty Comden and Adolph Green, but merely the ubiquitous one by John Kander and Fred Ebb.

Before that, however, came the now tried-and-true mix of arias arcane and familiar, obscure European ballads and hilarious covers of American pop: "O Sole Mio," followed by a few moments of incomparable kitsch: Domingo, Carreras and Pavarotti tossing off phrases from "Moon River," looking -- and sounding -- more like the Three Amigos than the Three Tenors. Puccini, Bellini, Mancini -- all in one easy-listening package. The first half closed with a medley arranged by film composer Lalo Schifrin, oddly appropriate in this summer of "Mission: Impossible ," his best-known theme.

There was plenty to savor in the individual performances: Carreras, Mr. Business, never breaking a sweat but probably offering the evening's dramatic high point with an aria from "Andrea Chenier"; Domingo, irresistible, moving from zarzuela to Franz Lehar, an inducement to seduction never absent from his eyes; and finally, Pavarotti, first among equals, lacking Domingo's darker strains and Carreras' amazing finesse, yet somehow more intense, more compelling than either. Pavarotti sings to you -- forget about the other 56,999 people. Sure, "Nessun dorma" from "Turandot" (Puccini) was big and wonderful. But so was the Neapolitan piffle. With his eyes narrowed and darting, there's an undercurrent of distant sadness in the performance as well.

If any chemistry beyond the thrill of making a fortune exists among these three singers, it wasn't evident in the meticulously choreographed performance, in which even the occasional back-pats seemed pre-planned. This was, for the most part, all business, polished and effortless. Choreographed, too, was the work of 12 cameras in the pay-per-view telecast, comparable to a "Live From Lincoln Center," i.e. the best TV has to offer. The stadium crowd frequently roared its approval, and so, I suspect, did viewers at home who'd shelled out $ 29.95. We got our money's worth.