MUSIC REVIEW : Pavarotti Circus Returns : Concert: The Italian tenor was back for another mutual-admiration orgy, with tickets going for a top $1,250.

He came, clutching his little white tablecloth. He squinted inecstasy and embraced the world in his patented bear hug. He sang. He conquered.

And he didn’t lip-sync.

But, given the way Luciano Pavarotti--the world’s best-marketed tenor--sounded Thursday night in the vast open spaces of the San Diego Sports Arena, he might just as well have repeated the Milli Vanilli imitation that got him into trouble Sept. 27 in Modena.

Serious artists are unencumbered, for the most part, with mighty-edifice complexes. They are content to perform in concert halls.

These modest buildings may not accommodate the masses. A capacity of about 3,000 would seem to be the maximum. Ordinary concert halls do, however, allow the human voice to sound like a human voice.

Greedy opportunists perform in humongous hockey rinks and basketball courts. Such venues cannot provide anything like the right aesthetic or acoustic ambience, but, hey, they can take in a lot of fans--and I do mean take in.

A Pavarotti concert these days isn’t a concert at all. It is a slickly orchestrated mutual-admiration orgy for the singer and the multitudes. It evolves around a personal appearance by an icon, and, make no mistake, the icon--not the music--is the thing. It is an essentially cynical event that relentlessly cheapens the expensive product on sale.

Who cares if the man touted as the world’s greatest tenor ends up sounding like the world’s loudest calliope in the world’s biggest echo chamber? Who cares if microphones falsify both his precious timbre and his limited power?

No one--well, hardly anyone--seemed to care on this typical occasion. The San Diego arena accommodates 14,000, we are told, and apart from a few patches of empty seats at the rear, it seemed full, just as it was for a similar show in 1985.

The deliriously happy fans could wash down their pizza and hot dogs with beer in a paper cup. They could yell unreasonable suggestions for encores, blithely assuming that the pickup band would improvise any tune on command. If the spirit moved them, they even could stroll out to the lobby and watch the brave Lonnie Smith trash the Jays on TV.

The devout also could--and did--support a thriving Pavarotti cottage-industry. T-shirts: $15. Posters: $6. No one, alas, was hawking autographed scores.

Cost, on a night like this, obviously is no deterrent. The best seats (narrow folding chairs) came as part of a multi-party package and sold for $1,250. Repeat: $1,250. A less fancy ticket-cum-parking tab came to only $200. Only . . . .

The San Diego Symphony again finds itself back on the brink of fiscal disaster these days. Never mind. There is no recession here as far as the Great Pavarotti Circus is concerned.

Tibor Rudas, the huckster who runs this circus, actually admitted in a self-serving introduction to his sloppily edited, error-laden puff-program that he regards his customers as rubes. “A large segment of our audience,” he wrote, “was attracted by the popularity of the Artist’s recordings. I am convinced that this evening’s performance will bring most of them to Opera for the first time.”

The circus, it should be remembered, was co-sponsored by the San Diego Opera. According to news releases, it was “made possible through a generous gift” from two local patrons. Since this was hardly a nonprofit venture, one had to wonder why any private subsidy was necessary.

What’s that? You want to know about the music?

Oh, dear.

This was a great night for conspicuous pretension, a bad night for singing. Most of the blame, of course, must go to the electronic echo-chamber, not to any musician.

Ironically, Pavarotti seemed to be in good voice--very good voice for a 57-year-old lyric tenor who recently ventured Otello (via concert performances in Chicago and New York). On this occasion, he did not venture anything that rigorous. Nor did he venture anything very high. Still, he did manage to suggest that his extraordinary career has been more than the figment of some publicist’s dementia.

As encountered from a side seat miles from the stage, Pavarotti’s voice bounced from wall to wall to wall to wall. Given such grotesque amplification and distorted reverberation, it could have been piped in from Modena. Still, one had to admire the mega-tenor’s open tone and even range (some strain at the top notwithstanding), his silken legato and exemplary diction. Naively, one also had to wonder what a talent like his was doing in a place like this.

Pavarotti opened his share of the well-padded formula program sweetly, with two arias from “L’Elisir d’Amore.” He sustained the arching cantilena of an aria from Verdi’s “I Lombardi” with uncommon poise. Although he managed to project the pathos of “Pourquoi me reveiller” from “Werther” in a reasonable facsimile of French, he chose the usual Italian translation for a rather lazy performance of Meyerbeer’s “O, paradis.”

In the second half, he turned to the two inevitable “Tosca” excerpts, followed by a nicely restrained “Vesti la giubba.” Finally came the hyper-caloric Italian love songs, climaxed by “Non ti scordar di me.”

The four inevitable encores followed, punctuated by the applause of recognition. First came “Tra voi belle” and “Donna non vidi mai” from “Manon Lescaut.” The idolissimo dedicated the latter to “all the beautiful ladies of California.” Sigh.

“O Sole Mio” followed, with a lovely pianissimo refrain but no trademark trill. Finally it was time for “Nessun dorma” and, not a moment too late, addio .

Leone Magiera presided idiomatically over the tinny/scratchy accompaniments mustered by an orchestra that seemed to be sight-reading. He did what he could to keep the crowd amused between star-tenor turns, conducting popular preludes of Donizetti and Verdi plus--whoopee--the “Lone Ranger” Overture.

Andrea Griminelli, Pavarotti’s flashy flutist in residence, once again did his part to stretch the agenda. First he tootled a droopy adagio from a Marcello concerto (the noteless program identified it as “The Concert in D Minor”). Then he wowed ‘em with a tastelessly snazzy “Carmen Fantasy” arranged by Francis Borne.