Opera

Luciano Pavarotti

 (Staples Center; 10,628 seats; $750 top)

By ALAN RICH

Luciano Pavarotti performed in a Los Angeles Opera benefit Tuesday at the Staples Center, his first indoor appearance in over 20 years.

Los Angeles Opera presents Luciano Pavarotti in a benefit recital for the company, with Cynthia Lawrence, soprano and Leone Magiera conducting the L.A. Opera Orchestra.
 

Strange are the uses of fame -- strange, and sometimes even sad. It has been some years since Luciano Pavarotti was a singer of consequence in the world of opera where his career had begun and was nurtured. As expected, his Los Angeles recital on Tuesday, his first indoor appearance in the city in some 20 years, drew a sizable crowd to the city's major sports arena, with tickets sizably priced. His singing was a pathetic memento of past glories; as expected, the crowd yelled and cheered and bravoed itself hoarse, and made it clear that they would gladly have spent the night at the Staples Center as long as their idol was willing to croak out a few more encores. But Pavarotti has, alas, slipped from the serious artist who might deserve that night's adulation to a crowd-fetching icon, famous for being famous.

No, "croaking" may be just a shade harsh. There were still moments in this generously planned program -- a turn of phrase with the silvery moonbeam of a tone that had brought him glory in the past, some loving partnering with Cynthia Lawrence in the irresistibly blossomy "Cherry Duet" from Mascagni's too-little-known "L'Amico Fritz" -- when it suddenly felt thoroughly OK to be part of that happy throng of well-wishers. Even so, you had to wonder: Other tenors have sung with elegant artistry at 67 and beyond; was the premature ruination of Pavarotti's great musical gifts brought on by an excess of exploitation in wrong places at wrong times?

The program was, indeed, generous: practically a "What's What" of the best-known Puccini arias, spiced with a lively Lehar bit and a lament from "Porgy and Bess."

Soprano Lawrence, who has appeared with Pavarotti on TV and in a live concert in Miami Beach that drew an estimated crowd of 300,000, contributed several solos and appeared in two duets.

Conductor Leone Magiera, who has directed orchestras for several Pavarotti TV specials, presided with a hand no firmer than circumstances dictated. At the end, instead of the loudly demanded but denied "Nessun dorma" that has become Pavarotti's signature tune and his albatross, the crowd was invited to join in the Drinking Song from "La Traviata."

For this one-of-a-kind event, Staples Center was reconfigured into a concert format, with the upper seats curtained off. The sight-lines were excellent; the sound, not so. Much of the orchestral sound seemed to be drawn up from the stage and then bounced around through the vast space. The result was a sound both thin and hooty, somewhat like the old-timey shortwave broadcasts. A sound system in which a single "ding" on a triangle can outshout a full string section needs a little more time on the drawing board.

Program: Arias and duets by Puccini, Cilea, Verdi, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Lehar, Gershwin, Massenet and De Curtis. Reviewed March 11, 2003.