popsical popera

Every time the television commercial for The Ten Tenors comes on, my wife jokes that ten is too many tenors. She says there should be a few baritones and at least one bass. A family friend (who is also a faithful reader of this blog) had one extra ticket for tonight's show, which is part of the Broadway in Knoxville theatre series at the Civic Auditorium. I was invited to tag along to hear the Australian singers who sometimes broke out their boy band moves.

As you would expect, the Tenors did several operatic pieces including the famous aria from "Pagliacci" and that song Paul Potts did on "Britain's Got Talent." They sang a couple of otherwise unknown songs from their CD, which was available for sale in the lobby.

As a fan of cross-genre cover songs, I especially liked the Bee Gees medley that came right before intermission. They also did an effective cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer." The definite highlight of the night was "Bohemian Rhapsody," which they use in their TV commercial. You can download a free mp3 of it on their website. It was preceded by some other Queen song that I didn't know. One of the tenors announced that Queen was their all time favorite band.

The concert was very enjoyable but it's always a little more fun to make snarky comments, so let me get those out of my system. Their Australian folk song medley made me feel like I was back at Dollywood's Festival of Nations. Throughout the night, each tenor got a chance to stand front and center and sing a solo, except for the one who had the most, um, expressive facial expressions while singing. For his featured song, they made him stand in the back by the drum kit. It was a bit like that scene with Marla Hooch in "A League of Their Own." In addition to the drummer, there was a pianist and a bass player who alternated between a bass guitar and a bass violin. We were sure that we heard more music than those four instruments could provide. I suspect that either the grand piano was really a synthesizer or that there was a recorded backing track to fill out the sound.

The eldest of the Ten Tenors, David Kidd, was born in 1971. I had my picture made with him after the show amidst a throng of autograph seekers in the lobby.