Even famed tenor can't out-sing St.  Petersburg din [Love Reuters' ID of
Domingo as "one of the three"...:)]

Even famed tenor can't out-sing St. Petersburg din

   ST PETERSBURG, Russia, June 16 (Reuters) - Poor acoustics, diesel
   generators and chanting football fans helped drown out Spanish tenor
   Placido Domingo on Saturday at an open air gala concert outside
   Russia's famous Winter Palace.

   Some 12,000 spectators gathered in the second city's Palace Square
   for the free concert, but many found it was impossible to hear Domingo,
   one of the famed "Three Tenors" who have helped bring opera to a
   wider audience.

   The singer was barely audible more than 50 meters (yards) from the
   stage.  "I thought that it would be difficult to hear, but I didn't
   expect it to be this bad," said Andrei Yershov, a St.  Petersburg
   resident who attended the concert.

   Noisy diesel generators powering beer tents that ringed the historic
   square were the main villains, but fans of the local Zenith football
   club did little to help matters by chanting "Zenith champions!" as they
   went by.

   Domingo sang excerpts from Camille Saint-Saens's "Sampson and Delilah"
   opera and Richard Wagner's "Die Walkuere" (The Valkyries), in which the
   star is to perform in St Petersburg on Tuesday.  He was accompanied by
   the Marinskii Theatre Symphony Orchestra under its star conductor,
   Valery Gergiev.

   The Spanish star was in St Petersburg for its annual "White Nights"
   festival, so called because it falls during the time of year when the
   sun never fully sets.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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