Pavarotti Shares His Frank Views

Spokane baritone Frank Hernandez just got the seal of approval from The Big Guy himself.

Luciano Pavarotti selected Hernandez as one of the winners of the Luciano Pavarotti Voice Competition held last week in Philadelphia. A total of 32 singers, from a field of 133, were selected as winners in a grueling four days of auditions.

Monday’s gala concert, which showcased Hernandez and the other winners, was actually an anti-climax compared to the jolt of adrenaline Hernandez received during the audition itself.

“After I sang, there was this long pause, and Pavarotti says, ‘Now, Frank, I’m going to say something that has probably been said to you many times before, and if not, I will take full responsibility for saying it: You are the next million-dollar tenor.”’

Hernandez was flabbergasted, partly because he is not a tenor at all. He’s a baritone. But Pavarotti thinks his talent reaches higher than that, so to speak.

According to Hernandez, Pavarotti went on to say things like “you are a perfect technical singer” and “you do not just have a good voice, you have a great voice of all time.”

When Pavarotti asked him if he had ever tried tenor, Hernandez replied, “In the shower.”

But then Pavarotti had Hernandez sing some phrases from tenor arias, and the Big Guy practically swooned. According to Hernandez, Pavarotti said that “every tenor in this building should be listening to you sing.”

Those close to Pavarotti told Hernandez later that he was Pavarotti’s favorite singer of the entire competition.

By winning, Hernandez earned the right to appear in a future concert or an opera with Pavarotti. Exact dates are still up in the air.

Hernandez, a graduate of Whitworth College, is presently in an apprenticeship program at the Houston Grand Opera. He is booked during the next year to sing at the Houston Grand Opera, the Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit and Opera Pacific in California - as a baritone, of course.

What about making that switch to tenor?

“I’ll think about it,” said Hernandez, 25. “I won’t really know if I’m that kind of tenor for eight to 10 years.”

Beatles poll

Here are the results of our informal Beatles poll on Cityline:

Best album: A tie between “Abbey Road” and the “White” album, followed closely by “Rubber Soul” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Best song: “Hey Jude” in a runaway.

However, 25 different songs received votes in that category, which proves how many different tastes the Beatles appealed to. Some people loved the shrieking “Helter Skelter”; others, the folkish “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”; others, the surreal “Strawberry Fields Forever”; others, the cheery “Penny Lane.”

Biggest surprise from the poll: Many of the respondents were teenagers.

Why Cheney?

We at Spotlight Central have been trying to find out why Steve Miller played Cheney’s EWU Pavilion instead of our brand-spankin’ new Spokane Arena.

A spokesman for MCA Northwest said Miller didn’t want to do shows in large arenas. He said that Miller was doing a more intimate “The Joker Plays the Blues” show, and that he also was playing small halls in Seattle, Portland and Eugene.

But then Miller himself told Don Adair, our ace musical reviewer-guru-god, that the Cheney show was not going to be one of his intimate blues shows, but one of his Gorge-like greatest-hits show.

This was all very puzzling until the night of the show on Wednesday, at which point we figured out the real reason: plain old market demand. The EWU Pavilion, with less than a third of the capacity of the Arena, wasn’t anywhere close to sold out.

Arena anxiety

Not that I’m nervous about the Arena or anything. The Arena’s concert calendar consists, in its entirety, of Reba McEntire (Dec. 10) and John Michael Montgomery (Feb. 16).

Hello, concert acts. January looks open.

Thanks, Radio Men

The Radio Men of KKZX-FM, Jim Arnold and C. Foster Kane, were deeply wounded that Spotlight inexplicably failed to plug the station’s big Beatles A-to-Z event, in which they play every Beatles song in alphabetical order. They keened and wailed and generally made great lamentations about this over the air on Monday.

Here, let me make up for it:

Be sure and catch KKZX-FM’s big Beatles A-to-Z event! They should be up to about Z as we speak!

There. Now, since the Radio Men seem to be in need of constant reinforcement, I’ll repeat what I’ve said on a couple of different occasions: The Radio Men are the best morning team in town and one of the funniest morning teams I’ve ever heard. They make me laugh out loud, even when they’re ragging on me.

Laura Love postponed

This just in: The Laura Love Band concert (“Afro-Celtic-folk-rock”) has been switched from Nov. 30 at JJ’s Lounge in the Sheraton to April 6 at The Met.

Tickets will go on sale in February.

Happy birthday, Gunther

Gunther Schuller turns 70 on Nov. 25.

The New England Conservatory, where Schuller was president from 1966 through 1977, is scheduling a three-day birthday fest in Boston, with performances of many of his works.

By the way, Schuller will be back (or Bach) in Spokane in January. Schuller conducts the Northwest Bach Festival Jan. 5-14.

Tickets for the Northwest Bach Festival are now on sale through G&B Select-a-Seat.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo