Andrea Bocelli review: Italian tenor delivers operatic splendor to rafters of Rupp

It’s a point of protocol at arena concerts as accepted as it is expected. You hear it when a song hits its emotional zenith, a peak that elicits a singular roar of worship from an enraptured patron. You know the sound. It’s a whoop of appreciation, elation, inebriation, whatever. It’s the holler you hear at any concert where the attendance is large enough to have its own zip code and the music centers on electric rock mayhem or modern country jubilance.

But at an orchestral event? During Puccini?

Well, that happened Saturday evening at Rupp Arena just as Andrea Bocelli hit the home stretch of “Nessun dorma.” There, within a pause long enough only for the celebrated opera giant to take a breath, came a singular audience blast of approval — a not-so-subtle reminder that you can put the opera singer in the arena but can’t keep the arena from going a little wild. When in Rome, you know.

That’s not a criticism at all. The two-set, two-hour performance with the Lexington Philharmonic and the locally based Global Creative Choir confirmed the expansive devotion of the fan-base that has made Bocelli the most celebrated tenor of his day — a contemporary Pavarotti in terms of popularity. Like the latter, his repertoire sometimes runs free of opera into more pop-friendly turf. Classical die-hards may view the occasional hybrid music as heretical, but everything at the Rupp concert pointed to the contrary.

After four and half decades of reviewing concerts in this cavernous performance space, I’ve never experienced anything like this before, and that’s wasn’t just because of Bocelli’s astonishing vocal phrasing or his understated yet undeniably charismatic stage presence. The distinctions seeped through every thread of the performance.

By design, the program was pure spectacle that incorporated a full orchestra, a 70-plus member choir, a pair of classical dancers and a team of vocal co-horts and partners. Yet everything came down to one man who stood onstage, practically motionless, and sang. And in something of a technical feat for a Rupp concert, the clarity of Bocelli’s singing was crystalline from the opening strains of Verdi’s “La donna è mobile” to the exhaustive crescendo of the aforementioned “Nessun dorma.”

LexPhil (under the direction this time out of longtime Bocelli conductor Steven Mercurio) and the Global Creative Choir were also treated to a surprisingly crisp sound mix for such a vast space. Their work was consistently sharp, although it was hard to fully appreciate the depth of their contributions with Bocelli out front (singing directly to the left of Mercurio) and Time Square-sized video projections continually in motion behind them.

The audience make-up presented its own level of fascination. Lots of suit-and-tie men and glamorously outfitted women sitting next to families in sweatshirts and ballcaps. Seated directly in front of me were a couple in full formal attire (tuxedo and sequined dress), but they seemed all in for the full arena experience. They came armed with a box of popcorn and two cans of Miller Lite.

But what of the music itself? Well, it was splendid. Though seasonal music was perhaps an inevitability, it played only a modest role in the concert’s second half. The rest was dominated by what one nearby patron dubbed “Opera’s Greatest Hits.” That simply played into the program’s sense of outreach. That meant Bocelli more than matched the dizzying pace of Verdi’s “La Traviata” drinking song “Brindisi” (which closed the concert’s first half.) It also allowed guest baritone Edward Parks to have a field day with Rossini’s “Largo al Factotum” by matching the “Barber of Seville” aria’s treacherous tempos with a Looney Tune-level of performance playfulness.

Parks was one of several artists woven into the performance to offer Bocelli regular breaks (he seldom sang more than two or three songs without taking one.) All were accomplished, including pop vocalist (and “American Idol” alum) Pia Toscano and violinist Rusanda Panfili. But Romanian soprano Cristina Pasaroiu was simply stunning, offering a performance of commanding depth and drama on her own as well as with Bocelli.

As for the Christmas selections, let’s just say you have an incurable case of the Scrooges if you didn’t feel some sense of seasonal warmth once Bocelli illuminated the pageantry of “Cantique de Noël” (“O Holy Night” sung in French) and “Adeste Fideles.”

But the big surprise was saved for late into the concert. In a performance sung predominantly in Italian, Latin and French, Bocelli went Stateside with help from Toscano by going full-on Elvis with an out-of-nowhere rendition of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” It possessed all the delicacy of Elvis Presley’s 1961 version but with a stateliness that belonged completely to Bocelli.

It should also be noted that as the concert wound down, Bocelli and Mercurio engaged in some subtle stage antics that recalled James Brown’s legendary concert routine where the soul icon would fake collapsing at the end of show only to covered in a cape by his valet before rushing back to the microphone. At the close of the Rupp performance, Bocelli’s waved to the audience and was guided to the stage stairs only to be summoned back by Mercurio. I lost count how many times this happened, but it was a charming bit that showed us even the most heralded of operatic celebrities isn’t above indulging in a little show biz mischief.