COVERING A WIDE VARIETY OF FICTION AND NON-FICTION SUBJECTS, THESE SHORT STORIES BY BARRY DEVONALD CAN BE READ ON-LINE OR CUT AND PASTED FOR PRINTING. BARRY LIVES AND WRITES IN VANCOUVER, BC CANADA. HE WELCOMES FEEDBACK OF ANY STRIPE.

The Three Tenors

As a tenor chorister with the Vancouver Bach Choir for twenty-seven years, one of the strangest concerts I encountered in in all that time involved The Three Tenors – of course as in Placido Domingo, Jose Carerras and Luciano Pavarotti. They were contracted to perform on New Year’s Eve 1996 at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, Canada. The venue has a capacity of 54,500 and to perform with them they had engaged the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and our roughly eighty person mixed voice (SATB) choir.

The show was billed and heavily promoted as a ‘Bring in the New Year with The Three Tenors’ concert. Said Tenors were at that time individually and collectively extremely popular. Embarked on a North America wide tour, they had given Seattle a miss, however their Vancouver performance attracted a considerable contingent from that city as well as from the BC Interior, Vancouver Island and as far away as Calgary and Edmonton plus of course local Vancouver and nearby Fraser Valley locations. It was to be, the public were promised, a ‘once in a lifetime concert experience to remember’ and from the stage we as performers certainly did remember, albeit as it turned out not for the best of reasons.

Accompanied by the VSO and conducted by our then long time conductor Bruce Pullen, we opened the show with O Fortuna, the opening to Carl Orff’s rousing and much loved oratorio. The work is loved by singers and audiences alike. The Three Tenors then went into their various solo and trio acts conducted by James Levine of New York Metropolitan Opera fame. In spite of the fact that the ticket prices averaged $100 plus and ranged up to $600 (this in 1996) we sensed not long after the start that we were about to witness a lazy, lackluster, unconvincing performance by the tenors. It was clear also to us that the audience also quickly sensed the mediocrity underlying the show. Although not lacking in quantity, the sound quality was also marginal in the cavernous sports stadium.

In spite of being the opening and in fact our only act, the Bach Choir was required to stay on stage for the entire concert. At least we were seated. At about 11:30pm all three tenors launched into a set that suggested grand finale, no doubt and predictably segwaying into the usual midnight New Year’s Eve hoop la. As promoted, we were indeed all about to bring in the New Year with The Three Tenors. Actually no we were not.

At about 11:40pm The Three Tenors and James Levine abruptly left the stage — clearly we thought, the classic if much overused false exit. They would of course return almost immediately to (hopefully) rapturous applause, pleas for encore, hooting and hollering. There would then be (predictably) a filler number and close to midnight they would finish the set with Robbie Burn’s 1788 hit ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Except no they wouldn’t.

As the Tenors and James Levine so abruptly left the stage, seated at the back of it as we were, we heard very loud rock music suddenly spring up from behind a curtain. The VSO sort of petered out as puzzled as we were. An ‘MC’, a ‘celebrity’ from a local radio station suddenly appeared mic in hand and announced that the Bach choir would perform another number. News to us!

Neither we nor the VSO had another number primed and ready to perform. No score, nothing rehearsed, no nothing. After a discussion with the fake ‘MC’, our conductor signaled for us and the VSO to dig out the O Fortuna scores we had put away. We were to sing it again. We and the orchestra quickly fumbled for our scores. The Three Tenors and James Levine were bringing in the New Year alright, at a private party backstage. 

The audience, sensing rip off and mis-representation, were by then making their displeasure known via boos and assorted other vocalisations. Trying to hold the fort, our conductor launched us and the VSO once more into the fray with O Fortuna. We had a hard time finding the key and our opening notes over the musical din now coming ever louder from behind us. We somehow got through O Fortuna again, waved to the now livid and hostile audience and high tailed it off stage before they started throwing things. How were they to know that even we performers didn’t know ‘Bringing in the New Year with The Three Tenors’ was both a financial rip off and a non-starter?

With our men in tuxes and the women in bright red full length gowns, we could hardly blend into the by then unruly crowd unseen as everyone headed for the exits. We did get some verbal abuse as we tried to explain we had been conned as much as had they.

The Three Tenors were paid US$ 500,000 each (about US$800,000 in today’s dollars) plus a percentage of the merchandise sales and royalties for each of their many North America tour concerts. The now disgraced (male sexual abuse) James Levine was paid a flat US$500,000 per concert. Allegations of female sexual abuse have recently surfaced against Placid Domigo. (September 2019).

To no surprise, none of The Three Tenors ever played Vancouver again.