It’s Prime Time for ‘Shine’ Pianist Helfgott

He raced onto the stage with no introduction, because after the movie “Shine,” David Helfgott needed none.

So familiar was the story of the troubled Australian pianist, in fact, that many among the sold-out crowd that packed Symphony Hall for the debut concert of his North American tour Tuesday night said they felt as if they knew him personally.

“I’ve seen the movie five times,” said Gary Burnham, a labor union official from South Boston. “I think I’m as crazy as he is, but nowhere near as talented.”

Part piano prodigy, part mental health poster person, the 49-year-old Helfgott is the real-life hero of “Shine,” the film directed by Australia’s Scott Hicks. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, “Shine” tells the story of Helfgott’s promising musical career cut short by mental illness and then resurrected with the help of his wife, Gillian.

The first appearance on Helfgott’s 30-day, 18-concert North American tour seemed as much a media phenomenon as cultural benchmark. His own publicists said the evening was more like a rock show than a classical concert. Some fans readily agreed.

“It’s certainly one of the funnier concerts I’ve been to in many years,” said Harry Breger, a Boston graphic designer. “I hate to say it, but it’s a little like watching a trained monkey.”

With his ear-to-ear grin pasted in place, Helfgott bounded on stage, bowed quickly and immediately began a program that featured Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven. Throughout the concert, Helfgott carried on his now-legendary soundtrack of grunts, growls and guffaws.

“Slow it down now, slow it down,” he coached himself. “Make it sing, that’s it, that’s right, sing sing sing, make it sing.”

Compared to the portrayal by actor Geoffrey Rush in “Shine,” however, Helfgott seemed subdued, apparently fulfilling a promise to his astrologer wife “to be a little quieter.” Gillian Helfgott revealed her husband’s intention at the only press conference on the 10-city tour here Tuesday morning. She also disclosed that before she allowed her husband to perform in North America, she consulted the stars and found the aspects “absolutely wonderful.”

While his 65-year-old wife, his German music coach and a phalanx of officials from “Shine” were holding forth for the press, the object of all the hoopla was said to be in his hotel room, doing push-ups and “singing away to himself.”

“David doesn’t get nervous,” Gillian Helfgott explained. “But he does get excited.”

So, apparently, did music and movie fans who besieged U.S. and Canadian box offices. Tickets for Helfgott’s four concerts in Southern California (Los Angeles, March 25 and 27 and Pasadena, April 28 and 30) sold out within hours. In Boston, not even a folding chair was vacant for Tuesday’s “Celebration of Life” concert.

Compact disc versions of the “Shine” soundtrack and of Helfgott’s suddenly famous interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto have been flying off the shelves at a rate of 10,000 per week, said David Lawrence-Kuehn of BMG Classics U.S. (The Rachmaninoff Third, which requires a full orchestra, isn’t on either of his two U.S. recital agendas--the second, titled “The Miracle of Love,” also features Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven.)

But from the start of a world tour that began last month in New Zealand, music critics have not universally shared this enthusiasm. An admiring Boston audience may have overlooked his occasional false notes, but musical purists are less generous, contending that his overnight ascension to international phenomenon says more about marketing and curiosity surrounding Helfgott’s unusual state of mental health than it does about his artistic abilities.

As David Dubal of the piano faculty of the Juilliard School of Music told Newsweek magazine recently, “Mr. Helfgott is a dreadful pianist.” His own childhood mentor, Australian music professor Sir Frank Callaway, described Helfgott as “sort of a circus act.”

Gillian Helfgott conceded at the press conference that rather than flocking to hear a brilliant musician, “probably there are people who are coming to see David tonight because of ‘Shine.’ ”

Hicks’ movie sternly depicts Helfgott as having a troubled childhood in a household run by an authoritarian, even abusive, father and shows his descent into what his psychiatrist has termed “schizoaffective disorder.”

By contrast, Gillian Helfgott prefers to think of her husband of 13 years as “eccentric.” She leaves discussion of his behavior and his medication to her recent memoir, “Love You to Bits and Pieces.”

Director Hicks was equally quick to put the same sunny spin on questions about the film’s factual accuracy. Isaac Stern did not offer a scholarship to Helfgott, as suggested in the film, Hicks explained by way of example, but was “a catalyst.” Hicks also minimized charges by one sister, Margaret, that David was not abused. “It would be a unique family that would all share precisely the same point of view,” said Hicks. “Yes, David has a sister who has a 100% different point of view, to which she is entitled--just as David is entitled to his point of view.”

The pianist’s personal manager, Austin Prichard-Levy, said tour personnel were exercising “deep restraints” to reduce potential stress on the performer. But Gillian Helfgott refuted the suggestion that her husband might be too emotionally fragile to withstand the pressures of worldwide scrutiny.

“He has never missed a concert performance. In the wine bar”--a Perth bistro where Helfgott performed for many years--”David never missed a performance,” she said.

Hicks, meanwhile, attributed “some of the more virulent response” to Helfgott’s appearances to criticism by “self-appointed guardians of an elite culture.” His audiences never ask for their money back, said Hicks “and that, I think, is as valid as anything in a world of entertainment as well as art.”

After Helfgott’s second standing ovation Tuesday, photography student Sara Huber echoed that opinion. “I love the music; I love his story,” Huber said. “He’s a fascinating man.”