The film opens with a very big man, singlet and shorts, working in a garden. Soon we see him and hear him, still very big, on stage, enthralling his audience with his clear and beautiful tenor voice. He is Pene Pati, Samoan, but moving with his family while still a boy, the oldest child, to Auckland and settling there, growing up there.
We are drawn into his story with more of his beautiful singing and then go back to family life in Samoa. Pene Pati will be well known to opera lovers but for those who are not familiar with opera, his story is something of a revelation, an enthusiastic young boy, strong-minded father and mother, getting their family to entertain with music the residents of an aged care home in Auckland, attending church, singing in the choir, playing football, chosen with a number of other young rugby players to become part of the chorus for a local production HMS Pinafore. He was also invited to help with a production of La Boheme, his first awareness of the impact of the emotion and joy of singing opera.
While the film traces Pene’s life and the gradual introduction to music – playing the piano, singing, teaming with his younger brother Amitai, who also becomes an international opera tenor, and joining with another friend, their cousin Moses, a baritone, to form a very entertaining singing and comic trio, Sole Mio, attracting the attention of producers – the world before him is always his Samoan tradition of loyalty to family and always being open to helping others. (And throughout the film, there is commentary, serious and playful, from his parents and his sisters.)
Pene has had an extraordinary opera career, singing in Germany, San Francisco, at the New York Met… always good friends with his brother, brotherhood rather than rivalry, Amitai also part of the title of this film and from the Pati family, and shown singing a range of opera pieces.
Pene is a very cheerful man, often commenting on his size, participating in this film, shown watching some of the footage, fascinated, laughing, amazed at what he has lived through. And, for opera lovers and beyond, there is a long sequence of his recording with one of the most vigorous conductors you might find, and orchestra, the familiar Nessun Dorma (and comparisons made with Pavarotti).
The many talking heads, quite international, provide helpful comments and insights about the two brothers and their singing.
Opera lovers, music lovers, will relish the experience of sharing the lives and careers of the Pati brothers – and audiences in general will enjoy this story from Samoa, to New Zealand, to the world. (The Wikipedia item on Pene is well worth looking at, a great deal of detail about his career, the many awards, the range of performances.)
Currently showing at Palace Cinemas, Balwyn
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