POP MUSIC REVIEW : In Humperdinck’s View, Loud Is Better

What an odd way for the Hollywood Bowl to open for the summer: Engelbert Humperdinck attempting to convert the venerable amphitheater into a Las Vegas lounge.

Wednesday’s concert, in which the English singer was accompanied by John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, was one of the more inappropriate bookings in recent memory. Humperdinck’s act, replete with characterless singing, tasteless jokes and cheesy impressions of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, came across like a failed audition for a late-’60s gig at the downtown end of the Strip.

Even the less-than-capacity audience, presumably primed and ready to be delighted, couldn’t find much to respond to beyond the obligatory run through his ‘60s and ‘70s hits “Release Me,” “After the Lovin’ ” and “Lonely Is a Man Without Love.” Selections from Humperdinck’s newest album were similarly retro, devoted to pointless re-examination of tunes such as “Secret Love” and “Teach Me, Tonight.”

Somewhere beneath the bluster and the flash, Humperdinck has a fair-sounding voice. But he seems incapable of doing anything more with it than belting every note of every song via interpretations in which loud, apparently, is always better.

The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra opened the evening with a too-brief set of what it does best-- movie music. Performing selections that ranged from a lovely rendering of Elmer Bernstein’s Brahms-tinged score for “The Age of Innocence” to Max Steiner’s classic “Gone With the Wind” suite, Mauceri and the ensemble overcame a few early rusty spots and wound up their program in mid-season form.