TV REVIEW : ‘World’-Weary View of Pavarotti

“Pavarotti: My World,” which airs on KCET-TV tonight at 7:30 as part of the “Great Performances” series, isn’t great. And, even in the loosest of senses, it isn’t much of a performance.

This Tibor Rudas production (what else could it be?) looks like an extended vanity project, with lots of recycled concert footage interspersed with laconic observations by the tenorissimo of our times about the tenorissimo of our times.

Call it self-serving. Call it hype. Call it a good lure for pledge donations. And, unless you happen to belong to the zonking throng that thinks Luciano Pavarotti can do no wrong, no matter how hard he tries, call it boring.

Pavarotti commands a wonderful voice. Everyone knows that. Even now, at 60, he sings remarkably well. Never mind those muffed high Cs that turned out to be muffed high Bs in the unwisely vaunted “Fille du Regiment” at the Met this season. Never mind that his forte remains forte , even when the composer requests piano . Never mind that the big guy’s primary affect these days seems to be affectation.

The basic problem with Pavarotti in 1995 doesn’t involve the singer’s talent. It involves the way that talent has been cheapened, distorted, diluted and coarsened by Pavarotti’s greedy handlers--with his obvious blessing. In the noble guise of democratization, the artist has been sold to the masses, and the masses have bought the package with zealous gratitude.

Apologists claim, of course, that blasting arias (and a little popular pap, too) to the multitudes at sports stadiums and improvised alfresco amphitheaters creates a new audience for the Finer Things. It has yet to be proved to at least one skeptic, however, that Pavarotti fans automatically become opera fans.

In fact, it is quite possible that the enthusiasts who enjoy the circus atmosphere, the bizarre electronic boosting and the greatest hits repertory of the Pavarotti shows (let’s not call them concerts) will find an ordinary “Boheme” or “Traviata” in the opera house too tame, too polite, too delicate and too demanding for aesthetic comfort. Real life, to the converts and recruits, may not be as attractive as bigger-than-life.

So, what does the world’s best-publicized if not necessarily best tenor think about his dazzling career as he enters his seventh strenuous decade? How does he feel about the conflict of art and glamour, about the coexistence of art and commercialism, about the pluses and minuses of being a superduperhuperstar?

How does he feel about being the second Caruso, the second Lanza and, in the eyes of his adulators, the Second Coming? How does he balance his private life with his public persona? How does he react to accusations that he has prostituted his extraordinary gifts? How does he explain his dangerously hefty appetite? Why does he always clutch that small white tablecloth? How does he cope with controversy or--perish the ignoble thought--criticism?

These are tough questions. You won’t get the answers, alas, on PBS. The Bravo Network came closer a couple of weeks ago with its less ambitious but more probing (everything is relative) “South Bank Show.”

What will you get? You’ll get Pavarotti singing arias, mostly easy arias, complete, in Hyde and Central parks, on the beach in Miami, in Beijing, in Rome and in his native Modena, among other locales. In some cases, you’ll get edited editions that begin on one continent and end on another.

You’ll watch our hero mug and perspire. You’ll enjoy close-ups of his larynx. You’ll hear him do some uncharacteristic forcing and wobbling when top tones beckon. You’ll see him introduce a not-very-promising young soprano-protegee named Cynthia Lawrence. (She wears a wedding dress--well, it looks like a wedding dress--while he, suffering from the chills, wears a funny hat and a floppy pink sports shirt that peeks out from the bottom of his sweater.)

You’ll even get a sampling of Pavarotti in dubious crossover outings. He joins a chastened Sting in a shamelessly mawkish arrangement of “Panis Angelicus.” He also teams up with virtuosos known as Bono and the Edge for something called “Miss Sarajevo.” Oh, dear.

When Pavarotti isn’t singing, he does a little generic talking. The sound bites aren’t very illuminating, much less provocative.

The producers no doubt thought we knew too much already.