Pop Music Reviews : McKennitt’s Voice Sparkles but Lacks Fire, Assertiveness

Loreena McKennitt ended her concert Tuesday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre by singing the closing speech from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” delivered in the play by the master artificer Prospero.

Actually, this mystically inclined folk singer from Canada was more like Prospero’s daughter, the enchanting naif Miranda. McKennitt’s sparkling soprano voice was as lovely and strong as you could wish, but she was severely limited by a lack of fire, assertiveness and clear-eyed vision in her music. The narrowness of emotional range and the occasionally flimsy thinking took some of the luster away from an evening that offered much attractive singing and playing.

McKennitt’s hybrid might be called traditional Celtic New Age world music for six-piece chamber-rock ensemble. She and her five-man band struck moods plaintive, mystical and fervent, drawing primarily on the Celtic tradition but with Middle Eastern and Spanish hues thrown in for variety and rhythmic snap.

It added up to a cloistered interlude in a carefully pruned garden of tonal delights, spiced with a touch of mystery-as-delicacy. Just the sort of place Prospero’s island was at the start of “The Tempest,” before the real world intruded and things started to get interesting.

* McKennitt performs Friday at the Wadsworth Theater, Veterans Administration grounds, Brentwood, 8 p.m. $22.50. (310) 825-2101. Also Saturday at the Ventura Theatre, 26 S. Chestnut Ave., Ventura, 8 p.m. $18.50. (805) 648-1936.