Also reviewed for Die Presse: Was passiert, wenn sich ein Klassikkritiker zu Andrea Bocelli ins Stadion verirrt?
Andrea Bocelli, or: Who's Afraid of Popularity?
The Italian pop star fills the Ernst Happel Stadium and raises questions nobody there is asking.
Finding oneself as a classical music critic in a stadium sets off the alarm bells. For one thing, it is not exactly the ideal venue for conveying the nuances of a classical art form in any detail. Worse: what is happening here appears to be something Popular — the natural enemy of the cultural snob. And indeed, Andrea Bocelli — for three decades an indispensable acoustic ingredient of every „Italian" restaurant — had come to Vienna, drawing an estimated 25,000 fans to cheer their Schlager star through his „Romanza 30th Anniversary Tour."The controversy around the blind-from-childhood Bocelli exists really only because his popularity has swept him into the rarified lane of classical music, where he is inevitably measured by the wrong criteria — as are almost all Pop-Classical Crossover-acts: Richard Clayderman, André Rieu, David Garrett, Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins. For anyone coming from the classical world, these figures must seem bafflingly, inexplicably popular. Not because high culture cannot, inherently, abide popularity — though that is, in fact, high culture's inherent contradiction: it wishes to be widely loved while remaining exclusive. No: the primary irritant is that these artists circumvent established standards of quality; ignore hallowed rules. By objective classical criteria, Bocelli is simply not a very good... OK: rubbish singer — however many times (three) he may have performed alongside Pavarotti. One need not listen to his appearance on the Verdi Requiem recording (Gergiev, Decca) to notice this... though it would help.
What so vexes the snob when Bocelli croons his way through „La donna è mobile," backed by an unnamed orchestra projecting a solid wall of amplified sound that taxed the eardrums? It is not popularity per se. It is rather that something here creates the impression of being what it is not — and instead of being unmasked, is celebrated. “That's not the real thing”, one wants to call out, gesticulating wildly. It is — to paraphrase Jean Baudrillard — at best a symbol, at worst one without an original. As dyed carp is not wild salmon, as Nescafé only superficially resembles real coffee, and as 50 Shades of Grey has 514 pages without thereby constituting literature. Bocelli et al. is at best the illusion of high culture, packaged so harmlessly and agreeably that no one need stretch to partake of it.
But here is the good news: the market sorts itself out. The estimated number of devoted opera fans in the Ernst Happel Stadium: two. The rest were enjoying themselves. Anyone happy in attendance here would not have been secretly happier at Tristan und Isolde or at a Christian Gerhaher recital. No poor soul, somehow under the misapprehension that this was „classical music", wandered into the stadium and now needs rescuing, or subsequent informing that Bocelli has no breath technique, a limited range, sounds small and strained at both ends of it and watery in between. But: One was able to simply enjoy a ravishingly schmaltzy pop concert, with morsels from the classical repertoire thrown in to tick the boxes: a little from „The Barber of Seville." „Au fond du temple saint" (Bizet). „O Fortuna" (Orff). Rodrigo and Morricone.
Where a baritone was needed, Roberto De Candia was on hand; where a high voice, soprano/DJ/life coach Cristina Păsăroiu; where a fiddle, Viennese crossover violinist Rusanda Panfili. And where a pop singer, Andrea Lykke for Stand Up" and Vivo per lei. A pity these performers went unacknowledged — after all, they were responsible for more than half the programme and more than a couple highlights. Bocelli fils Matteo („Fall on Me") also got his duet, and he was very much mentioned. Bel nepotismo. Finally, what everyone had been waiting for: „Time To Say Goodbye" — and as a parting shot, a charmingly askew „Nessun dorma" that rang out across the Prater.
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