MUSIC REVIEW : The ‘I Love Luciano’ Show

The audience--well-dressed, quietly festive and just a bit diffident--warmed up slowly at Luciano Pavarotti’s latest Hollywood Bowl appearance. A certain reserve sometimes marks the behavior of large groups of people who have spent up to $1,000 for their tickets.

But the tenor himself seemed hot, not just warm, when he came onstage--all smiles--promptly at 8:19 on Monday night to sing “Quando le sere al placido” from Verdi’s “Luisa Miller.”

It was the first of 10 entrances onto the Bowl stage--negotiated, not through the usual, formal, stage-right pathway, but out of a black cubical situated behind the accompanying ensemble from the Los Angeles Philharmonic--in a generous but not overlong evening.

With each appearance, the crowd, counted by the management as sold-out (in excess of 18,000 people) seemed to grow in enthusiasm and participatory glee.

By 10 o’clock, when a parade of encores followed the program proper, the audience’s noisemaking had become nearly deafening. They were yelling not only their approval, but suggestions about what should be sung.

At 55 1/2, the Italian singer has done all this before, sometimes in this very place, as in 1982 and 1986. Yet Pavarotti does not seem to lose his relish for the liveliness of performing in large outdoor places before massive and responsive audiences. Monday night, he appeared to enjoy himself hugely. As a result, so did his guests.

Of course, he--and his tour management--had been in control of all aspects of this Pension Fund Benefit for the players of the L.A. Philharmonic since its first announcement (no information on the profitability of the event for the Pension Fund will be available, a Philharmonic spokeswoman said Wednesday, since the impresario and tour-packager, Tibor Rudas, dealt “privately” with the Philharmonic management).

The musical agenda, the printed programs and the sound system reportedly duplicate the same elements at other stops on the tenor’s current international summer tour.

In Cahuenga Pass it went well, despite amplification dispersal that started out tinny and ended up overloud. If that sound system (not the Bowl’s, by the way) did not actually distort Pavarotti’s voice, it gave a questionable prominence to the voice in relation to the reduced orchestra--65 members of the Philharmonic, ostensible beneficiaries of the proceeds of this event.

The tenor’s vocal instrument itself, one opines from incomplete evidence, seems healthy and healthily resonant. If its remembered sweetness has lessened over the years, perhaps that is inevitable; its unique and handsome quality remains.

And its user maintains his artistic standards. He still sings beautifully--at some times with more ardor and intensity than at other times--and stylishly. And he loves to please.

As this evening wore on, the pleasures increased.

Pavarotti followed the aria from “Luisa Miller” with “O Paradiso” (from Meyerbeer’s “L’Africaine”) and “Cielo e mar” (from Ponchielli’s “La Gioconda”). After intermission, there were the twin “Rigoletto” arias, “Vesti la giubba” (from “Pagliacci”) and three Italian songs by Bixio and DeCurtis, in the flashy arrangements by Henry Mancini, to whom the tenor dedicated them.

High notes? The right ones, with the right stuff, mostly. B-flats of good quality in the pre-intermission, strong B-naturals in both “La donna e mobile” and “Nessun dorma,” the final encore.

Before that last hurrah, the encores had been “O sole mio,” two arias from Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” and “Torna a Surriento.”

Sharing the stage, if not the glory, at this event were conductor Leone Magiera, who also led the Philharmonic contingent in orchestral excerpts from “Luisa Miller,” “I Vespri Siciliani” and “La Traviata,” and flutist Andrea Griminelli, who played two solos with the orchestra.