Andrea Bocelli must have figured he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by singing one of his stadium gigs Wednesday at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont so soon after his disastrous U.S. operatic debut in “Werther” last month in Detroit with the Michigan Opera Theatre.
In one sense, he was right. Though the 41-year-old Italian tenor superstar (who has sold more than 20 million recordings worldwide) had been forced earlier to sing without a microphone and portray a tragic hero in one of the touchstone French operas even though he has been blind since 12, here he had only to stand and deliver a potpourri of arias, Italian songs and pop tunes familiar to his legions of fans, let the heavy-duty amplification take care of the rest, and go home with buckets of money.
In another sense, he was wrong. As mercilessly as the “Werther” exposed his vocal shortcomings, the Rosemont venture did not add much luster to his cross-over celebrity, either. Yes, the estimated 14,000 attendees gave him his push-button standing ovations. And, yes, he sounded freer and more relaxed than in Detroit. But a palpable cloud of disappointment hung over the arena, like Romans primed for a gladiator match who are treated instead to a sewing bee. The fans clearly hungered for Pavarotti but got Pavarotti Lite.
The Tuscan-born tenor’s voice is pleasant, with a reedy timbre, but small and lacking any sort of breath support. There is almost no expressive intensity or depth behind it. Pumped up electronically, he hits the high notes and creates the illusion of vocal heft. So what? Everything he sings comes out as bland as the slickly packaged persona one knows from PBS pledge-week specials.
Bocelli did not wave an oversize white hanky, but most everything else about this cynical enterprise stressed the Pavarotti parallel. His backup band, identified as the “World Festival Symphony Orchestra,” vamped till the darkly handsome tenor was ready with operatic overtures and such by Verdi, Rossini and Mascagni. Steven Mercurio conducted demonstratively. There were unannounced program changes and substitutions.
Meanwhile, on two large screens flanking the stage, the audience was treated to MTV-style Bocelli home movies–the singer horseback-riding through the surf, romping with his kids, and so forth–mixed with live close-ups of his closed eyes and designer stubble. In a curious way, these attempts to portray Bocelli as warm and cuddly only called more attention to his blank, colorless performances.
Musically there was not much to choose. In his Italian operatic arias, Bocelli sounded pretty much the same whether he was singing the Duke in “Rigoletto,” Rodolpho in “La Boheme” or Alfredo in “La Traviata.” The low point was a soupy sacred aria that sounded more like Jerome Kern than Caccini. Better were Bocelli’s forays into Neapolitan songs–Pavarotti territory again–where he could be amiably charming without placing undue stress on his pop-singer technique.
But it must be said that Bocelli was consistently outshone, vocally and artistically, by soprano Ana Maria Martinez. Her rich, vibrant voice provided the evening’s choicest moments in two Puccini arias, a rapturous “Bailero” (from Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne”) and the Aria from Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasilieras” No. 5, and some charming Spanish fluff.
