Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano Metropolitan Opera 9 April 1996 Metropolitan Opera House I stood outside the Metropolitan Opera House in a blustery, blowing snow for an hour and a half to buy a scalped ticket for this performance by Luciano Pavarotti. By the time I bought an extra ticket from a school teacher dashing toward the entrance, curtain time was only minutes away. Nearly all the 30 or 40 hopefuls had given up by then; I was headed back toward the hotel, but decided to walk up where taxies let off passengers at curbside rather than straight back. I got lucky there, fumbling with nearly numb fingers for the right combination of bills as we speed-walked in at the last moment. I warmed up slowly in my seat at the back of the orchestra section during Act One, happy to be seeing the legendary tenor for the first time in my opera-going career. Act One in this venerable Met production was done all in gold, a monochromatic the seemed to flatten everything that was going on. Pavarotti sounded younger than his years (60?), though hardly cut the figure of a dashing young revolutionary. His sound was absolutely characteristic, the ringing clear tone I have heard on a hundred recordings. He sang without much legato or sustained sound, but was very evidently in command whenever he was on stage. Aprille Millo's voice seemed strangely weak to me, clean and confident even in high registers, but without power. She was at her best in the Act 2 duet, where both she and Pavarotti displayed a ringing power that filled the house and produced some shivers of excitement. I found Juan Pons very forceful in his big aria, "Nemico della patria." By contrast, "La mama morta" followed as a big disappointment, weak overall, perhaps done too slowly to sustain the power. I also felt "Si, fui soldato" failed to live up to its potential, trailing off after a promising beginning. I am a big fan of the Metropolitan opera orchestra and it was typically stellar under James Levine at this performance, always capable if not always inspired.