MUSIC REVIEW : Solti--Ending on a Grand Note : Maestro, Pavarotti Fight Illness in Conductor’s Swan Song to Chicago Symphony

Luciano Pavarotti is now, for the first time, singing Otello. And, like everything else in the tenor’s career these days, it is no small occasion.

To hear the tenor tell it, as he did at a mobbed press conference at Carnegie Hall on Monday, attempting Verdi’s “Otello”--the most fearsome dramatic challenge an Italian tenor can face--was not his idea. Blame Sir Georg Solti.

For a suitably grand event on which to end his 22-year career as music director of the Chicago Symphony, Solti wanted to give the world a spectacular concert performance of “Otello,” an “Otello” suitable not only as the conductor’s swan song for Chicago, but something splashy enough that he could bring to New York to help cap Carnegie Hall’s centennial season. And something that London Records could record live.

With Placido Domingo having already recorded “Otello” twice, Solti asked Pavarotti.

The 55-year-old singer, whose gift is for an enthralled lyricism, is hardly anyone’s idea of a perfect Otello, a role that requires a powerfully dramatic singer.

Indeed, the most affecting Otellos on stage have not necessarily been tenors with the most beautiful voices, as the piercing Jon Vickers or the late James McCracken have proven. And Pavarotti says he never really seriously considered attempting Otello until Solti approached him two years ago.

Even then it took the tenor six months to decide. Yet, he said that after studying the role, Otello simply got under his skin. So, with great trepidation and trusting himself entirely to Solti, he agreed.

But, by the time of his first performance in Chicago last week, something else got under his skin--a bad cough. Solti also took sick with the flu, but both went on anyway. The 78-year-old maestro conducted most of the opera from a chair and said he nearly called it quits before the final act. And though still not completely recovered, both carried on at Carnegie on Tuesday night as well.

In Pavarotti’s case, carrying on means something rather bizarre.

An enormous throne was supplied onstage for the tenor--the other singers all had normal straight-back orchestra seats--along with a side table on which to hold his bottled water and various vials and sprays. When not singing, the tenor slouched down, covering his face with a handkerchief and looking thoroughly miserable. But then he would suddenly rise and sing, looking just fine.

He also sounded just fine. In fact, vocally, Pavarotti proved a more than distinguished Otello.

Perhaps the tenor’s famous opening, “Esultate! L’orgoglio musulmano,” was not as ringingly grand as a more heroic tenor might make it but, like a good marathon runner, Pavarotti seemed to be setting a pace that would allow him plenty of vocal steam for later on.

And in the end, he demonstrated plenty of stamina. He sang out magnificently in his biggest moments, and he brought a rare ardor and delicacy to his love duet with Desdemona that few of the gruffer dramatic tenors can match. He sounded just right in the company of Kiri Te Kanawa’s luminous Desdemona and Leo Nucci’s very mellifluous, if not particularly intimidating, Iago.

Somehow, it didn’t matter. And, once more, blame Solti, because this “Otello” was ultimately Solti’s show.

Keeping singers, orchestra and chorus on a tight rein, the conductor led a tense, unyielding performance nearly all bombast, with minimal dramatic subtlety, and even less atmosphere.

There were, of course, unforgettable effects that could never happen in the opera house. The Chicago Symphony is a gleaming band. Margaret Hillis’ Chicago Symphony Chorus, on this occasion under guest chorus master Terry Edwards, is the most magnificent chorus this writer has ever heard in a Verdi opera. The opening storm, for instance, was astonishing in its surges of orchestral power, with the chorus always cutting through, every word clearly enunciated.

The quadraphonic third-act trumpet calls announcing Venetian ambassadors set Carnegie resounding gloriously, and those perfectly tuned winds underscoring Desdemona’s Willow Song were inspiring in their beauty.

But Solti is a conductor who moves from attack to attack, not phrase to phrase. He is a conductor who keeps singers preoccupied with score, baton and recording microphone--Pavarotti had two, by the way, while all the other singers were accorded a single one.

Worse, he is a conductor who relishes such an orchestral ruckus that no singer can ultimately sound dramatic over it, and the most thrilling moments of the whole evening were the brief seconds here and there where the orchestra dramatically dropped out and the singers could really seem like singers. Poor Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, an otherwise suave Cassio, was the most underpowered. Predictably, the most impressive voice of the evening was the biggest, the booming basso, Dimitri Kavrakos, in the tiny role of Lodovico.

The recording engineers--who will choose from the Chicago performances and the two New York ones (it will be repeated at Carnegie on Friday)--can fix all that. What they will not be able to fix is the lack of drama and the utter lack of characterization encouraged or even allowed from any singer.

At the press conference, Pavarotti had said he would not rule out singing Otello again, but he seemed cowed by the role and made it sound highly unlikely that he would ever do it onstage.

He should reconsider. He was convincing enough Tuesday to show that he has the notes; now he needs the right conductor and theatrical situation to help him become Otello.