Thrilled, Appreciative Fans Pack Stadium : Music: From the $1,000 seats to the nosebleed section, the momentous ‘Three Tenors’ concert was the place to be in Los Angeles Saturday night.

“I like to be in America. OK by me in America. Everything free in America. “

Leonard Bernstein’s paean from “West Side Story” rang out to a capacity Dodger Stadium crowd Saturday night during the “Encore! The Three Tenors” concert, and an international throng plainly shared the sentiment--and objected not a bit that the evening was anything but free.

They schlepped from Switzerland and Silver Lake, Tokyo and Torrance, to be part of what was likely the single most multinational mega-concert crowd Los Angeles has ever seen.

“My feeling is that half of this audience is not from the United States,” said Bill Press, chair of the California Democratic Party, as he schmoozed in the $1000-a-seat section, which was so cosmopolitan and preoccupied that even O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro was unbesieged as he proceeded to his seats.

In fact, the evening’s event was so much the place to be--for people from every tax bracket--that even hardball commentators were reduced to gushing. “Pavarotti is my favorite,” Press continued. “And ‘Nessun dorma’--I’ll probably weep and sing along.”

From the nosebleed heights of the uppermost deck to the 13,000 top-dollar folding chairs on the playing field, the attentive fans basked in the mix of pops and opera fare from Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.

Some called it momentous. “This is a second Golden Age of tenors and it may be generations before this happens again,” said retired businessman Gerald Hieitel of San Francisco, a denizen of the priciest seats.

Others were thrilled just to get an earful, seat or no. “I was really happy to work this,” said Sue Levandofsky, a concession worker up in the blue seats. “Most everybody was.”

Tuxedos mixed with T-shirts on every tier above the well-heeled playing field pack, but the thumbs-up was as consistent as the dress code was not. Luigi Caruso, who cooks for Pavarotti when the tenor is in Pittsburgh, sat in the loge and called it “a dream.” Teacher Tiecheng Fan, who’d never been in Dodger Stadium before, said the topmost tier was “wonderful.”

Frank Mayer, a travel guide from Switzerland, rated conductor Zubin Mehta “brilliant.” And the Angeleno brothers Buchak, Ruben and Ed, in matching red, white and blue jackets with Caesar’s Palace logos, agreed the show was “10 times better” than they’d expected.

San Francisco real estate agent Ibtesam Sahourieh and her retired friend Terri Saba echoed the sentiments of many. “I died and went to heaven about half an hour ago,” Sahourieh cooed as she stood in the souvenir line. “And I’m so excited. It’s like my first trip to Disneyland,” Saba added.

Some, including architects Joey Shimoda and Tom (who wouldn’t give his last name), even managed to slip in without paying. “We were listening outside and we just walked in. We got lucky.”

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The evening wasn’t problem-free--a traffic jam and parking nightmare had people streaming into the stadium virtually until intermission, keeping up a steady accompaniment of high-heels clicking on concrete. But the concert-goers stayed tuned to the tunes. “Considering it took us almost the whole first half to get in here, it’s still excellent,” said Evan Nisonson of Los Angeles, beer in hand.

Then too, there were those who thought the sound wasn’t up to snuff. “I came up here to join my friends in the cheap seats,” said Larry Miluv, business manager for the rap group Naughty by Nature, lurking on the loftiest level. “My wife Sheila and her brother and sister-in-law from New Jersey stayed in the loge. Downstairs the sound is horrible. Up here, it’s excellent.”

The biggest sound next to the Big Three, though, was that of moola being made, in small ways as well as large. “Every now and then you hear a cash machine in the background go ding-ding-ding,” said jeans-clad student Ed Haro of La Mirada.

A few other gripes were more idiosyncratic. Frank Sinatra, whom the three tenors saluted with two renditions of “My Way,” displayed his legendary restrained appreciation of the fourth estate. “Singers? What singers?” he snarled, when a reporter asked him about the tenors. “I’m not gonna answer that question at all.”

Still, goodwill and euphoria were more the norm. The final medley and many encores elicited bursts of rhythmic clapping. And one enterprising woman even stood in a phone booth on the general admission level, holding the receiver up toward the stage so that a friend at home could hear. It may have been the only rebroadcast producer Tibor Rudas didn’t have a piece of.

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Staff writers Barbara Isenberg and Ted Rohrlich contributed to this report.