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 arena. You are fraught with dread. The last thing you want is to hear the Pay Man like this. It will pain you to see him debase himself, tossing out schlock for a zillion dollars. A hustling impresario from Hungary organizes these events for him, in places like Madison Square Garden, Dodger Stadium, and Hyde Park. They aren’t musical experiences; they’re vulgar extravaganzas, with microphones, spotlights, and soupy arrangements. You have nothing against the wider dissemination of good music, or the broader popularity of worthy musicians. But this is sheer Barnumism, more corruptlug than elevating.
You arrive at the arena. 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. You make your way up to the rafters; hockey and basketball banners hang from them. 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.” .h voice comes on over the p.a. There will be a delay due to “traffic congestion.” Peculiarly, the voice is British, and you wonder whether the organizers suppose that they are lending an air of class. he atmosphere might be that of a tractor pull, or of professional wrestling. People are eating, laughing, anti shouting to one another across the sections.
The lights dim, and there he is, bounding in from behind a curtain. With the naked eye, you can spy his trio of trademarks: the delighted grin, the giant hankie, the arms thrust upward. The opening piece — “number,” in this context — is “Addio, fiorito asil.” The first question to be answered is, Is he lipsynching? He was caught at it once before. No, he is transposing down a half step, so it is probably not a recording. Then come some rhythmic and intonational problems. Good news: He is not lip-synching. This may also be bad :news. He lurches to the end of the aria, and its concluding words, “Oh, I am vile!” (“Oh, I am vile!”). You squirm in your seat.
After that minute and a half, his sidekick soprano appears, giving him a rest. He returns with a sloppy, slurred “Non piangere, Liu,” and you wish you were a million miles away, or at least at home, with your recordings. He is merely “phoning it in” — and that just barely.
The orchestra assays a Verdi overture, then Pav breezes back, with “Che gelida manina.” This, also, is transposed, and he is making an embarrassing hash of it. He is sliding, barking, and missing. This is beyond phoning it in; this is aggressive inferiority, and you are angry. 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. On the final note, “dir” — an easy, auto- pilot E-flat (D for Pav) — he cracks. Through many years of listening to him, you have heard him do a lot, but not this. It wasn’t even a “professional” crack; it was an amateur, civic-theater crack. After raucous and sustained applause — there’s no surprise — the soprano gives her, “Si, mi chiamano,” and it is time for the duet. Pav staggers through, which is about as much as you can hope for now. He even manages a pleasing, though fortissimo, final B (for he is down again).
Half-time,” says the man behind you to his wife. “No, at this, it’s an i
By Jay Nordlinger
