MUSIC REVIEW : Phoenix Boys Choir Shows It Has Raw Materials in Newport Beach

The Phoenix Boys Choir, which opened a California-Japan-Hawaii tour Wednesday night at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, won’t cause the Vienna Choir Boys to lose any sleep.

Not that the raw materials are not there. Under the leadership of Harvey K. Smith, the group has cultivated an unforced, mellifluous sound. Intonation is well under control and enunciation clear and synchronized.

The choir is most comfortable with quiet, sustained lines, as in William L. Dawson’s a cappella arrangement of the spiritual “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” Here they need not worry about the sort of rhythmic drive that would have enlivened Dawson’s “Ain-A That Good News” or Daniel Pinkham’s “The Angels on the Head of a Pin.” Here, the reedy purity that only a well-chosen boys choir can accomplish could not overcome the lack of dynamic nuance.

If the raw materials were present Wednesday night, the artistic challenge was not. As printed, the program seemed to have a great deal of variety--from spirituals to Offenbach, from Bernstein to Tchaikovsky, from Japanese folk songs to American pop standards. As experienced, a pall of blandness hovered over the entire evening.

Some of the selections were intrinsically bland, such as Ned Rorem’s set of six songs, “Who has Seen the Wind.” But others seemed to have been made bland--such as the Japanese folk songs with Western-style arrangements.

If artistic variety was lacking, assorted pantomimes and dance routines were not. There was marching in “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” ostensibly J. Michael Diack’s spoof on Handel’s style, but actually more reminiscent of Arthur Sullivan. There was a lively dance for the Trepak from “Nutcracker.” The boys filed in. They filed out. They stood in the aisles and sang. They instructed the audience to sing with them.

In fact, the choir was at its best when singing with someone else, as when echoing soprano Dorothy Lincoln-Smith in the Japanese lullaby “Baby Chan.” But then Lincoln-Smith has a trained voice that she uses with mature musical sensibility. The charming sameness of the Phoenix Boys Choir created a perfect background. After all, what better backdrop could any artist ask than 36 soprano and alto boys discarding their usual impishness for a moment of angelic innocence?