MUSIC REVIEW : Jose Carreras Wows ‘Em

When Jose Carreras gave his last local recital, at Ambassador in 1985, he was just a good lyric tenor languishing in the shade of the Big Two and trying, from time to time, to force a lovely lightweight instrument through dangerous heavyweight challenges.

Now he is an idol. The masses worship at his feet. He works right up there in the rarefied, well-publicized atmosphere of Lucky Luciano and Pleasant Placido. The earth-shattering banality of his triple-tenor collaborative concert, still breaking sales records both in record and video stores, proves it.

Carreras has gone through a lot in the past years. He has enjoyed an apparent triumph over devastating illness and established his own International Leukemia Foundation.

Continuing to flex his vocal muscles, he has enlarged his operatic repertory to include Saint-Saens’ formidable Samson. He has recorded mushy Hollywood hits and slushy tunes of Andrew Lloyd Webber. He has written a quasi-autobiography, and assumed musical responsibility for the summer Olympics in his native Barcelona.

Although it took place outdoors, his local comeback on Saturday was not what one could regard as a garden-variety concert. Carreras is gracing such reasonable, conventional venues as Carnegie Hall in New York and the opera houses of San Francisco and Seattle during his current tour. For Los Angeles, however, he chose the rock-pop-and-schlock oriented stage of the 6,125-seat Greek Theatre.

One hopes the chilly amphitheater--one could actually see the breath that produced the pearly tones--proved advantageous for Carreras’ worthy medical charity. The official connection between the event and the presumed beneficiary is not defined in any material provided by the management.

Be that as it may, the Greek did provide a comfy ambience for extra-musical delirium. Clearly, this was an admiration-society convocation. A huge, hand-made “Welcome Back Jose” banner graced the theater facade.

The fans were still straggling in half an hour after the start of the concert, which already had been delayed half an hour. The devout came carrying drinks, hot dogs and ice-cream bars. Communal spirits were high.

The audience was in good voice. “Viva Espana,” someone kept yelling. “No Way, Jose,” volunteered another admirer, who, no doubt fearing negative inferences, soon changed his message to “Love You, Jose.”

The fans offered vociferous repertory suggestions at every available pause, assuming, no doubt, that the orchestra could improvise “Nessun dorma” or “Pagliacci” at the drop of a baton. When the aficionados recognized a familiar tune--”Mattinata,” for instance, or the “Lone Ranger” overture--they whistled and screamed in instant delight. Too bad they obliterated the music in the process.

Both singer and conductor tried to discourage the premature ovations with disapproving glances. It mattered not. This was neither the time nor the place for concert-hall decorum.

This was the time for unbridled congratulation, both inner- and outer-directed. This was a place where groupies could hand flowers to their hero mid-concert, reach up and shake his hand between arias, even leap to the stage for a few private words while the encore marathon was still in halting progress.

This was a concert that juxtaposed a few Great Opera Hits (the ones that don’t rise to a high C) with a few Neapolitan songs with a few zarzuela ditties with a few samples of show-biz schmaltz, with long orchestral interludes (four--count ‘em--four) padding the proceedings.

This was a concert where technicians kept turning on the houselights at the wrong time. Perhaps the man in the booth couldn’t follow the printed program.

Which printed program? Good question. This was a concert that offered a skimpy sheet for everyone plus a puffy, 12-page, $10 magazine for collectors.

The editors, who couldn’t even agree on the spelling of the conductor’s name, promised Meyersbeer’s (sic) “O, paradis” in French in one publication and in German in the other. Carreras settled the dispute by singing the aria in anachronistic Italian.

What’s that? After all this, you want to know how he sang? How silly.

He sang--warmly and generously, I think--through a haze of amplification. Make that bad amplification , even worse than what we have come to expect, if not accept, at Hollywood Bowl. He sang into blaring, tinny, ear-shattering microphones that lent new meaning to the concept of distortion.

Wait. Maybe he wasn’t singing at all. Maybe he was lip-syncing to recordings.

On second thought, that couldn’t be. Recordings wouldn’t sound so sloppy. Recordings use rehearsed orchestras, orchestras that play the right notes in tempos similar to those favored by the soloist.

No. This may have sounded like Canned Carreras, but the packaged product was Carreras Live.

The product did offer the careful listener some hints of what might have been. The characteristic Carreras timbre still seems extraordinarily sweet and pure, except when the tenor pushes those high notes. His ardent yet essentially lyrical approach to legato challenges remains compelling, except when he confuses bel canto with belt canto.

The vaunted Carreras pianissimo, verging on an artful croon, seems to retain its shimmering caress. Too bad he didn’t try to use it more often.

Elio Boncompagnie (Boncompagni?) conducted with unflappable cheer and apparent competence. The fast-reading orchestra was identified in the program merely as “full.”

At the end of the rather brief formal agenda, Carreras pulled out more popular stops. He returned to Sorrento with a predictable passion. He neatly imitated Mario Lanza’s bleat in “Be My Love.” He saluted Granada con brio. He ventured “O Sole Mio” minus the Pavarotti trill.

For all I know, he is still out there, warbling “Home on the Range” and “Melancholy Baby.” For all I know, the fans are still out there, whooping and hollering.