Fanfare of Love

Julio Iglesias’ niche in pop music’s sexual bazaar is a refined little spot full of Old World charm, where the blatancy of blaring Boltonesque belters and torso-baring stage gropers can’t intrude. Julio’s place is indeed a church of high romance, a grotto for sweet sighs and a courtly approach to the old let’s-get-it-on.

On Thursday, Iglesias opened a four-show engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center that runs through Sunday. He was by turns likably humorous and exacting--of the audience, which he prodded for sing-along response (ultimately having his way with them), and of band members, whom he sternly coaxed and tutored early in the show when he didn’t hear just what he wanted.

Iglesias summed up the point of his 95-minute performance when he told the crowd, “If you go home and you don’t make love . . . this is not mission accomplished for us.” He summed up the romantic decorum of his methods when he announced, “We make love on the stage with our brains.”

Vocally, Iglesias, 54, didn’t dazzle with a daring range or a distinctive timbre. What he did was sing as if he really believes in romance, investing his even mix of songs in Spanish and English with a combination of sincere ardor and tenderness. In pop, the man in the sleek black suit (the jacket of which he doffed only briefly while urging on the audience) may be the last of the courtly leading men.

Old World though he might be, Iglesias went in for a fair amount of Vegas-style stage flash in the lighting and the band arrangements on uptempo numbers in which the guitar chords, synth flourishes and sax wails were predictably fanfare-laden. Also, for some reason, he likes to have many of his vocals boosted with electronic echo. One might charitably suppose that the cavernous effect is his way of evoking spelunking as a metaphor for sexual exploration, but the result was a bombastic glossiness at odds with sweet intimacy. Iglesias’ eight-man band and two fine female backup singers were sharp enough to infuse some slick, uptempo, show-band bits, including “Agua Dulce, Agua Sala,” with enough excitement to cut through the packaging.

Iglesias’ sense of dynamics served him well on the Elvis Presley standard “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” when quiet, tender singing at the start set up a stirring “that’s show biz” full-band outburst at the climax. His accent added fresh color to such nuggets as Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me” and two Nat “King” Cole chestnuts. The Spanish-born singer’s Continental cadences made for fresh phrasing on his English songs without need for any of the hard work of interpretive invention.

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Iglesias sang three songs from “Tango,” his current album of Argentine standards from more than half a century ago. Two Tango dancers gave form to a brand of sexiness wrapped in stylized elegance.

However, Iglesias also acknowledged the raw heat underlying the veneer of romanticism. At several junctures, the visuals were provided by a lithesome young dancer shimmying every curve inside and outside of her Victoria’s Secret-like stage garb.

Iglesias’ long-standing worldwide appeal clearly lies in his ability to swathe that naked and essential erotic impulse in the courtly trappings of romance. His self-deprecating humor undercut any titanic pretensions and made him a comfortable host, courtly, yes, but also fun.