TV REVIEW : A Tenor-Friendly ‘Pavarotti’ on ‘Great Performances’

There are two revelations in “Pavarotti and the Italian Tenor,” part of the “Great Performances” series tonight (at 9 on KCET-TV Channel 28 and KPBS-TV Channel 15, at 10 on KVCR-TV Channel 24). The first is that talent runs in the family.

Papa Pavarotti--Fernando--had a very good tenor voice himself, as evident in a tape of a radio broadcast he made in 1955. The family vocal inheritance is instantly recognizable. But Luciano says that Fernando lacked ambition and the “courage to go in front of an audience face-to-face and say, ‘Here I am’ ” to make an international career.

(It does not, however, prevent the older man from joining his son and the Rossini Chorale of Modena to sing--badly, understandably at his age--the traditional song “La Giana” later in the program.)

The second revelation is that the famed Luciano “doesn’t read music at all,” says his accompanist, Leone Magiera. “So when he studies, he absorbs by listening.”

Magiera adds that several “famous” (unnamed) conductors consider this lack to be an asset because it allows a singer “to use his imagination more freely.” The lack is not unprecedented. Pinza, it was said, could not read music either. But it is unusual. Reading music is not like mastering astrophysics.

The point of the tenor-friendly program is to put Pavarotti squarely in the Caruso tradition that revolutionized bel-canto singing that was “primarily for technical display,” says Magiera, replacing it with “genuine, human inflections--a person’s voice, not just a singer’s voice.”

But when Pavarotti, now 57, ventures bel-canto repertory--songs by Paisiello and Donizetti--the results are not altogether satisfying. The bloom is off the famous voice--not always and not necessarily from the top, but rather just below it. There he can sound dry, strained, narrow and lacking in agility.

In approach, he usually tends to alternate between two choices--forceful and less forceful. Subtlety does not enter the picture very often. The problem is compounded by director Joshua Waletzky’s camera work, which tends to fill the screen with Pavarotti’s face.

The most endearing moments come in watching Pavarotti’s responsive face as he listens to old recordings of Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa and Giuseppe di Stefano, intercut with historical film footage of these artists.

His most affecting vocalism probably comes in Donaudy’s “O del mio amato ben” and Tosti’s “Non t’amo piu,” which closes the program, a production by Herbert H. Breslin.