Getting ready for Pavarotti

In just a few days, Pavarotti takes the stage in Tulsa. Luciano Pavarotti, the opera singer. Tulsa is one of just 40 stops on his worldwide farewell tour, just one of 3 in the US. Hard to believe?

Tuesday, September 13th 2005, 10:43 am

By: News On 6

In just a few days, Pavarotti takes the stage in Tulsa. Luciano Pavarotti, the opera singer. Tulsa is one of just 40 stops on his worldwide farewell tour, just one of 3 in the US. Hard to believe?

As News on 6 reporter Steve Berg says wait until you hear about his dressing room.

Pavarotti has dazzled audiences around the world for decades and this Saturday, his legendary voice will fill the ORU Mabee Center. "There are people out there who are still saying; well I won't believe it until he steps on stage.â€ Believe it, says promoter Tony Winters, because they're custom building the stage even as we speak. But there's a pretty unbelievable list of requirements compared to other big shows he's done. "Most of them are probably 40, 50 pages of materials, this one is in the hundreds of pages of material that we have to do."

Backstage, the crew is in the process of building a nearly 400 square foot dressing room with nearly every conceivable amenity, including a fully functioning bathroom. "Fully plumbed, heat, electric, cooking capabilities, sofas, chairs, TV's, DVD's, everything he could possibly want there." Johnny Buschardt with Road Work Productions is the man who spent months, flying, faxing, and finagling in an effort to beat out places like St. Louis and Kansas City and Chicago. "We all flew up to Chicago and I was the only one who didn't have a team of four and the specialists and the AV presentation. I had a little power-point presentation on my laptop." He believes the biggest selling point was the acoustics of the Mabee Center, which he says at 30 years old, are still some of the best.

Tony Winters: â€œWe want to make sure that Tulsa comes out of this looking' like the absolute best stop on his North American tour so we're really trying to go above and beyond make sure that everything is absolutely perfect when they get here."

Buschardt also says that Tonight Show host Jay Leno gave Tulsa a big endorsement to Pavarotti. He says the two are friends and says Leno made a visit to Tulsa a few years ago. He says there are still about 200 tickets available for Saturday's show.