Mom's favorite 'popera' delights Beiteddine crowds
Global supergroup Il Divo strut their stuff at international festival
BEITEDDINE, Lebanon: “You will never forget this concert,” enthused a rotund man to a pair of women sharing the bus ride through the Chouf Mountains Thursday evening. “They are like magic!”
Musical tastes vary, of course, and other words could, and will, be used to describe the operatic boy band Il Divo, the headlining act at the Beiteddine International Festival last week.
Audience members with a low tolerance for saccharine who were innocent of the Il Divo phenomenon no doubt felt their hearts sink a little as the show opened.
To introduce the international cover band, the swooning Il Divo (mostly string) orchestra fused three power ballads – “The Power of Love,” popularized by Celine Dion, Mariah Carey’s “When a Hero Comes Along,” and “Can’t Live If Living is Without You,” also popularized by Carey.
This gushing of high-fat, high-salt cheese was only an hors d’oeuvre for the evening’s main course – the carefully choreographed entrance of the evening’s four stars.
Dressed like emperor penguins, Il Divo swaggered down the central staircase to rapturous applause. Sporting impressive perma-tans and/or heavy makeup and brilliant bleached teeth, they broke into a well-sung Italian cover of Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak my Heart.”
As they unleashed the most-polished example of commercial “popera” you could ever dream to see – or not see – the sensual mood lighting of blood reds, fuchsias and deep blues ignited Il Divo’s earnest expressions.
“The sunshine in Lebanon is nearly as bright as all of your faces,” beamed David Miller, the cuddly American tenor of the supergroup.
“What a beautiful country and what beautiful ladies!” interrupted the bad-boy Spaniard, Carloas Marín.
With a doe-eyed smile and a hand on his heart, he quickly adjusted himself to say, “This next song is dedicated to all the beautiful mothers!”
The mother-ish tune did indeed commence with lyrics to stir any mom’s ovaries. “Mama,” Marín crooned, “thank you for who I am/ Thank you for all the things I’m not/Forgive me for the words unsaid/For the times I forgot.”
The rest of the gig unraveled in similar form. A medley of universally well-known anthemic fodder flew from the strings in quick succession. Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Water,” trickled past, as did Procol Harum’s “Nights in White Satin” and, of course, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” – straight from the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack.
The stunning atrium of Beiteddine’s 19th-century palace, the seat of the Shihab Emirs (so-called), provided a peculiar setting for the plucky quartet’s version of music.
Thankfully, only one sacred cow was slaughtered this evening: Leonard Cohen’s (and Jeff Buckley’s) “Hallelujah” was publicly massacred, in Italian.
Il Divo is the brainchild of Simon Cowell, the world’s most famous pop-music and reality-TV guru – the culprit behind some of the last two decades’ best-selling chart music, including Westlife, Leona Lewis and Shampoo.
With an eye for what sells and an ear for mass appeal, Cowell spent two years recruiting for a boy band to contemporize The Three Tenors’ style. They would be overwrought and belt out a series of 1990s power ballads appealing to both the Mother’s Day and the insipid teen markets.
Most of all, they would make a mint, and they did: Not only does Cowell find the bands, he has the reality TV infrastructure to ensure they are beamed across the world.
Il Divo appeared on Cowell’s Pop Idol in America, Britain and Sweden and have even released two books entitled “Romancing The World” and “Our Music, Our Journey, Our Words.” Four stars were born.
Il Divo did pull off a thoroughly entertaining set for most of the Beiteddine International Festival audience, though it might be observed that clowns too can be entertaining.
Other than the nausea surging through those with more astringent tastes, these manufactured crooners were note perfect, faultlessly choreographed and elicited an audience response just short of a standing ovation.
This what Il Divo is designed to do. Like a laxative is designed to relieve, Il Divo is designed to delight. Il Divo is what happens when pop music is whittled away until nothing is left but a gimmick and a price tag.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=116903#axzz0tQtjqPlW
