Three Tenors lift the soul of a rock ‘n’ roll reviewer

Geoff Carter

Monday, April 24, 2000 | 10:36 a.m.

In July of 1994 I heard the Three Tenors -- Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti -- for the first time.

The formidable trio's first collaboration, a landmark 1990 concert in Rome, was readily available on CD, but I had avoided listening to it. I was a rock 'n' roller, trying to decipher my chosen medium; I respected opera, but didn't have room for the Tenors in my tape case, crowded as it was with the current taste.

What a fool I was. I was driving to a cafe when I tuned in a simulcast of the Tenors' Los Angeles concert; halfway there, I had to pull off the road. I'd teared up so during Domingo's magnificent "No puede ser" that I couldn't see straight.

I recovered during the medley of American songs and made it to the cafe just in time for "Nessun Dorma," in which Pavarotti employs his celebrated "high C." I turned the stereo up as loud as it would go and a small crowd gathered around my car, clinging to Pavarotti's last, ecstatic note.

Seeing the Three Tenors perform live Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center was equally dreamlike. I never quite believed that I was there, and in a sense, I wasn't. My body was seated in a chair; my soul was most definitely elsewhere.

The Tenors never faltered. Domingo, in particular, sounded as precise and cutting as a whip crack, and his whisper-to-a-shout histrionics got the biggest crowd response. But only just -- Pavarotti and Carreras also reached that impossibly high ceiling with what seemed like minimal effort.

The program was lean and played to each vocalist's strengths. Carreras gave a sturdy performance of "Lamento di Federico" that had a nearby woman weeping aloud. If the other two tenors are sprinters, Carreras is a distance runner. His singing style relies less on showiness and more on stamina; his songs are equally weighted, beginning to end.

The oldest of the three -- he's almost 65 -- Pavarotti shows little sign of his talents flagging. His robust voice and near-boisterous manner are those of a man who truly loves his work, loves life, loves the very idea of performing. He swayed to the castanets of "Grenada," and took the stage each time as if it were his first ever.

Needless to say, he's still got the "high C," and the capacity crowd cheered wildly when he sang it. Once again, I was too stunned even to applaud.

A medley of American songs was the only part of the program that seemed -- well, a bit hokey. Renditions of "Maria" and "You'll Never Walk Alone" held up, but "My Way" doesn't deserve to be treated so well. It's not the Tenors' fault: They obviously wanted to honor their host town with a native melody, and "My Way" is as close to one as Vegas can claim.

To their credit, they performed the song without irony, which is more than most have done. And Domingo's playful aside during "Moon River" ("Three Tenors / off to see the world") more than compensated for it. And five encores, including "O Sole Mio," more or less sealed the program airtight.

I avoided the Three Tenors for years because every fan of the trio I'd encountered (all women) was overly sentimental, hopelessly romantic and given to dreams of European splendor. Looking back today, I can't understand how I could ever believe that those were faults.