Monster Talent
NORDLINGER, JAY
Music Monster Talent By Jay Nordlinger It's not an evening you've been looking forward to. Guests are coming in from out of town, and they want to go to the Pavarotti blow-out at the sports...
...You have lost all awareness of the cigarette placards, the stickiness under your feet, the overhead TV monitors...
...you wonder...
...Half-time," says the man behind you to his wife...
...Later, there is the third-act duet from Otello, and-what's this...
...it's not Pavarotti...
...but it's reasonable...
...The "Girometta" leaves your mouth agape...
...He is sliding, barking, and missing...
...he is a musician of formidable intelligence, and he is displaying it all over the place now, to the relief of his defenders...
...He truly is in the line of Caruso, Gigli, and Schipa...
...The first question to be answered is, Is he lip-synching...
...It may be late, but greatness will out...
...Pav finishes with a dazzlingly improvised Brindisi...
...Oddly, tears form in your eyes...
...You are inhabiting a kind of musical cocoon, and, for all you know, you are in a box at La Fenice...
...The stage is a dot on the floor, bearing a pick-up orchestra, a provincial conductor, and cameras for the inhouse video screens, necessary because of the vastness of the "hall...
...With the naked eye, you can spy his trio of trademarks: the delighted grin, the giant hankie, the arms thrust upward...
...You squirm in your seat...
...hockey and basketball banners hang from them...
...You float from the hall, and you wish that you could attend one of these "vulgar extravaganzas" every night for the rest of your life...
...to acquit himself with some dignity...
...Guests are coming in from out of town, and they want to go to the Pavarotti blow-out at the sports arena...
...You understand the lure of riches, even for an already wealthy man, but shouldn't he recoil to give the public-even this public, which is prepared to cheer him no matter what-such a performance...
...This may also be bad news...
...Oh yes: He has interpolated a touch of coloratura, and it is masterly...
...It wasn't even a "professional" crack...
...they're vulgar extravaganzas, with microphones, spotlights, and soupy arrangements...
...The "Addio alla madre" that opens the second half is actually in the realm of the acceptable...
...You make your way up to the rafters...
...He handles the Neapolitan chestnuts with pure nobility, without a trace of condescension, as Ferrier did her North Country ditties, and Anderson her spirituals...
...Good news: He is not lip-synching...
...This is beyond phoning it in...
...Pavarotti has decided to show up for work...
...in fact, you feel ill...
...The lights dim, and there he is, bounding in from behind a curtain...
...You haven't been able to bring yourself to applaud...
...The orchestra assays a Verdi overture, then Pav breezes back, with "Che gelida manina...
...The last thing you want is to hear the Pav Man like this...
...He even manages a pleasing, though fortissimo, final B (for he is down again...
...Why is Luciano doing this...
...It's not good...
...It will pain you to see him debase himself, tossing out schlock for a zillion dollars...
...Perhaps the worst thing about these stadium outings is that they fuel the Pavarotti-haters, who are mindless, but numerous and annoying...
...He was caught at it once before...
...You are fraught with dread...
...Then come some rhythmic and intonational problems...
...The voice is regaining its pliancy and bloom, finding more predictably the center of the notes...
...He lurches to the end of the aria, and its concluding words, "Ah, son vil...
...This, also, is transposed, and he is making an embarrassing hash of it...
...He has performed and recorded this piece a thousand times, but may have never done it better...
...He returns with a sloppy, slurred "Non piangere, Li?," and you wish you were a million miles away, or at least at home, with your recordings...
...Through many years of listening to him, you have heard him do a lot, but not this...
...You have nothing against the wider dissemination of good music, or the broader popularity of worthy musicians...
...you deserve to remember him in his rightful state...
...You are screaming yourself hoarse, clapping your hands raw, swearing that you'd have paid ten times 80 dollars...
...The encores begin, and you are in the presence of an interpretive titan...
...The people are buying their hot dogs, pizzas, and popcorn, buzzing at the prospect of being entertained by the big, smiley guy they know from television...
...The atmosphere might be that of a tractor pull, or of professional wrestling...
...Could it be...
...The old bear seems to be rousing himself...
...After raucous and sustained applause- there's no surprise -the soprano gives her, "S?, mi chiamano," and it is time for the duet...
...He is almost cocky now: nimble, lithe, and . . . hang on a second...
...This is more than impressive singing...
...The liquid woodwinds have returned, along with the clarion trumpet...
...Oh, I am vile...
...But this is sheer Barnum-ism, more corrupting than elevating...
...Toward the end, however, the line "Or che mi conoscete" is intensely musical, and you are glad to be reminded that the Pav Man is, of course, intensely musical, and no gaudy carnival can totally obscure it...
...After that minute and a half, his sidekick soprano appears, giving him a rest...
...People are eating, laughing, and shouting to one another across the sections...
...Mattinata" is next, and something wonderful is happening...
...He is newly supple and newly characterful...
...it was an amateur, civic-theater crack...
...Pavarotti is no simple-minded, happy-go-lucky ex-urchin from Modena, accidentally blessed with a freak vocal instrument...
...No, at this, it's an intermission," she corrects, though, really, the man wasn't wrong...
...You arrive at the arena...
...There will be a delay due to "traffic congestion...
...The printed program closes with "Non ti scordar," exquisitely, definitively sung...
...Pav staggers through, which is about as much as you can hope for now...
...They aren't musical experiences...
...He is almost into his voice, and he is beginning to...
...He is singing with a little more control, a slightly surer step...
...A hustling impresario from Hungary organizes these events for him, in places like Madison Square Garden, Dodger Stadium, and Hyde Park...
...My, how you've changed, but so has he...
...this is aggressive inferiority, and you are angry...
...On the final note, "dir"-an easy, auto-pilot E-flat (D for Pav)-he cracks...
...Peculiarly, the voice is British, and you wonder whether the organizers suppose that they are lending an air of class...
...A voice comes on over the p.a...
...The opening piece -"number," in this context-is "Addio, fiorito asil...
...No, he is transposing down a half step, so it is probably not a recording...
...it is high musicianship...
...How can you ask people to pay 80 bucks for (a cumulative) 25 minutes or so of a crude impersonation of one of history's great tenors...
...He is merely "phoning it in"-and that just barely...
...And you curse that, by coming tonight, you have put at risk your life's memory of the Pav...
...E lucevan le stelle" is both heart-stopping and undeviatingly correct...
...Put that bellowing clown out to pasture," they have been saying, and you cringe to reflect that, at last, they may be right...
Vol. 1 • December 1995 • No. 15
