They may be hot, but you can’t feel the love

Destiny’s Child’s farewell tour concludes next week, but it looks as if the R&B; vocal group’s three members have already said goodbye to one another.

At the tour’s Anaheim stop at the Arrowhead Pond on Thursday, Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams danced together and harmonized on cue, but while there was plenty of heat on the stage, there was little real warmth or interaction.

It’s appropriate that the three singers have been enshrined as Barbie dolls, because at the Pond each one seemed sealed off in her own display case.

But don’t assume that’s a product of animosity or estrangement among the singers, who are ending a five-year teaming that’s been one of the most successful in recent pop-music history. (Destiny’s Child began in 1990, but this lineup has been intact since 2000.)

The more likely reason for the lack of connection is the video-age, production-number mentality that’s turned concerts into tightly choreographed calisthenic displays that replace genuine emotion with constant motion.

Preoccupied with their costumes, their steps and the script, the singers don’t really know how to make a connection with anyone. Their audience, meantime, seems thrilled just to be in their presence and watch the razzle-dazzle as if it were unfolding on a home theater screen.

This chapter-closing tour is generally viewed as a preliminary to Knowles’ coronation as a solo star. The singer, who turns 24 this weekend, is well positioned in the wake of her 2003 solo album “Dangerously in Love,” which has sold a reported 9 million copies worldwide and brought her four Grammys. Comparisons with Diana Ross, who was 26 when she left the Supremes for solo stardom in 1970, have become commonplace, but that’s because they fit perfectly.

It was no surprise that Knowles easily overshadowed her partners Thursday, especially when she closed a series of solo spotlight turns with a flashy production of her hit “Crazy in Love.”

Knowles has her diva stance, her flared-nostril diva glare and her diva vocal excesses down pat, and it adds up to a beautiful but forbidding facade. But in her showcase sequences she also showed some agility and sensitivity as a singer, and if she works on that corner of her craft it could develop into the emotional opening that would make her more than a Barbie.

Rowland has had some success on her own as well with her 2002 album “Simply Deep” and its hit “Dilemma,” and her rougher, more soulful singing carried her solo segment Thursday. Williams’ interest is gospel, but her over-the-top performance could have used a little Christian humility.

Destiny’s Child’s own body of work has been uneven, but there’s still a charge in the early hits such as “Bills, Bills, Bills,” a sassy kiss-off to a shiftless boyfriend. But with bigger success came bigger production and more cliched material, and the bulk of the two-hour show (which was also scheduled to play Staples Center on Friday) was given over to hyperactive staging and gaudy routines with their troupe of dancers.

For all the glitz, there was little sense of this being a special occasion. The group members made a couple of perfunctory references to the last tour, but it all seemed business as usual. At times it had a little downbeat air.

They couldn’t get much rise from the audience on their sing-along efforts, and there were a lot of empty seats back there -- the arena appeared to be about three-fourths full.

That suggests that fans aren’t buying the breakup story and expect them back, or they’ve checked out and are saving their money for Beyonce’s arrival.