Placido Domingo in Berkeley

Angel Joy Blue, Placido Domingo, and Micaela Oeste. Photo from YouTube.

This much is true: Placido Domingo, now in his 70's, still has a gorgeous voice; he's an extremely generous and warm performer who respects his audience; and he remains a riveting presence onstage. During Saturday night's concert at UC Berkeley's Greek Theater, a show that ran for nearly three hours, he proved that over and over again with little, if any, apparent effort on his part. The man is worthy of superlatives.

What's less true is that all of his talent and attributes make for a compelling concert experience. A pleasant, pleasing one? Sure. One worthy of the man's abilities. Not quite. Would it appear churlish to say I expected more? I'll leave that up to you, though I suspect many of you would answer "yes." However, before you do, please re-read that first paragraph. The man is undeniably great, but the concert was a meandering hodgepodge that in the end amounted to the kind of show one might have seen on the Vegas Strip in days gone past- glitzy, professionally staged, and flawlessly executed, but offering little more than an evening's entertainment.

That wouldn't be a bad thing if Domingo didn't have so much more to offer.

Everyone did their part, including the sound engineers who expertly captured a surprising amount of nuance from the singers and the orchestra, in effect bolstering rather than amplifying them (I've never heard an orchestra or opera singers amplified to such pleasing effect). The Berkeley Symphony, under the baton of Eugene Kohn, were for the most part marvelous- crisp and fluid, never overpowering the voices and Kohn never let things sag. There wasn't much nuance, but given the outdoor setting it was probably best not to try. Also excellent were the two sopranos Domingo brought along to share the load- Micaela Oeste and Angel Joy Blue. Filler never sounded or looked this good. All that was missing was a reason to be there beyond the opportunity to hear the man sing. Some would say that's more than enough. I will say when you've got someone as gifted as Domingo in the house, who has done so much for the art of singing, and especially operatic singing, it's not.

Domingo wound his way through some opera (Verdi, Wagner & Giordano), some show tunes, some Zarzuela and some schmaltz ("Besame Mucho"). He shared the limelight generously- everyone was allowed to shine. But I couldn't help but wonder how enchanting the evening could have been had an artistic director been engaged to turn the concert from a polished showcase into a musical journey of revelations and discoveries- about why this singularly talented man has been singing opera for over 50 years;  what's special about the form and his unique contribution to it; to show how some stories are best told with the voice and an orchestra; to illustrate the connections between seemingly unrelated styles, and even to learn something more about the man himself. But ambitions of this nature were absent from the program, leaving the real potential of the massive talent onstage sadly unrealized. That was obviously fine for the majority of the audience, who enjoyed every moment of it under the warm summer sky. Their cheers brought Domingo back for numerous encores, and though each one seemed to yield diminishing returns, he looked like he was having the time of his life. I can't begrudge him that. He's certainly earned it.

The concert was presented by Another Planet in conjunction with Cal Performances.