But trio delights concertgoers

Sixty thousand heard them sing near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

They drew 35,000 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit this summer.

What happened Wednesday night in Silicon Valley?

The Three Tenors -- Plácido Domingo, José Carréras and Luciano Pavarotti -- failed to sell out the San Jose Arena.

"It's shocking, to see all these empty seats,'' said Jerry Lipori, who's $225 second-floor balcony seat was a gift from a friend.

Arena officials said only 14,268 tickets were sold out of 17,000 available seats.

Some say the trio of stars were competing with the busy holiday season, while others blame the high price of admission -- tickets ranged from $100 to $1,000. It most likely was a combination of both.

Crowd enthusiastic

By evening's end the crowd, many dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns, was enthusiastic and entertained.

Of the three tenors, Domingo was in the finest form.

Even if you couldn't understand French when Domingo sang Massenet's "O Souverain, o juge,'' you would sense its emotional significance. His nuance of tone and concern for the words is well known. And when he took the powerful love aria "E lucevan le stelle'' from Tosca, Domingo again revealed his sense of proportion.

Domingo, with his heartier voice, also best knows how to adjust to a microphone, which does dreadful things to the lyrical timbres of the woodwinds -- especially the flute -- and terribly harsh things to a voice like Pavarotti's that is already pushing past its limits.

Carreras began splendidly, almost conversationally singing music by Cilea and Pietri, but inevitably muddied the good effect by forcing his crescendos.

Forceful emotion is the point of the Italian opera game, and Puccini is its highest scorer. An aria by this composer may be, and usually is, sentimental. It may be over the top, but goes to the heart, and often, for the jugular.

Maybe more than the tenors themselves, Puccini scored last night. For the audience applauded wildly even before Domingo began "E lucevan,'' recognizing it from Puccini's "Tosca.'' And when Pavarotti completed "Nessun Dorma,'' also by Puccini, many were on their feet.

"I get goosebumps when he sings `Nessun Dorma,' '' Bill Matthews, president of KTEH (Ch. 54) said.

It is partly Pavarotti, but partly Puccini's climbing phrases.

If you have to hear this music amplified and in a hockey stadium, this arena is better than most. It is more attractive and, as many of its fans claim, "intimate.''

But it would be wiser to hear one, any or all of these guys sing in an opera house, perhaps the one that belongs to the San Francisco Opera Orchestra who accompanied them, suavely, despite the challenges of the amplification. Marco Armilliato was the apt leader.

Prices too high?

Daniel Sudakovskiy, a student from De Anza College, thought so too. Instead of giving up, however, Sudakovskiy was canny. He noticed Tuesday morning that the $100 seats were sold out. But "practically everything else was available,'' Sudakovskiy said. So he waited until two hours before curtain to see if tickets would be discounted.

In a reversal of standard scalping practice, the box office -- just hours before curtain -- lowered prices of the $225 balcony seats, offering them for $100. But even then the box office lines did not manifest.

Sudakovskiy, though, was there. By 7 p.m., he had bought two of the $225 tickets for $100 apiece.

There was considerably more activity at the will-call desk, where many people said the tickets were Christmas gifts to themselves or from family and friends.

Valdimir Nunes of San Jose was trying to sell an extra $100 ticket. `I'd bought it for my wife, but she's gone to the movies. . . . I'm trying to sell this $100 ticket to Paul, for $50,'' Nunes said.

Paul De Temple, the man standing next to Nunes, laughed loudly. "The tenors, or a flick! Hey, this is the dumbest time of year to do something like this. Between Christmas and New Year's, people are skiing or away.''

De Temple didn't buy the reduced ticket, despite Nunes' rationale: "that once he got inside, he could move around to wherever you want to sit.''

Copyright © 1999 Mercury Center.