©Cape Cod Times. All Rights Reserved
12th July 2004
Three Tenors harmonize beautifully
By CYNTHIA McCORMICK
STAFF WRITER
HYANNIS – Did you have a favorite Beatle? Then you must have a favorite Irish tenor. During Sunday night’s sold-out performance at the Cape Cod Melody Tent, Anthony Kearns seemed to be the fave ladies’ man – at least to the group of women who cried out "We love you, An-thony!" But it’s really hard to choose among the "Three Irish Tenors," who held the stage with a 38-piece orchestra for about two hours, not counting a brief intermission.
There’s the dark-haired Finbar Wright, who broke rank with the Celtic mood of the evening to sing a fun "South of the Border."And then there’s Ronan Tynan, the famous singing doctor. His mag-nificently powerful voice caused eyes to tear up during the lovely "Song for Ireland.".
While all three harmonized beautifully and wittily played off each other on stage, Tynan’s showmanship may have won the night. His fans know his story - born with a disability, both of his legs were amputated when he was 20. He then went on to win gold medals and set world records in the Paralympic Games, get a medical degree AND become a sold-out singing sensation. Perhaps most impressively, Tynan even managed to conquer the revolving stage at the Cape Cod Melody Tent. Instead of revolving all the way around, the stage was doing half turns and circling back. At the end of one song, when Tynan was supposed to bound down a ramp off the stage, he was stuck half a stage away. After yelling "C’mon, Nelly!" to try and get the stage moving again, he jumped off into an orchestra section, to the cheers of the crowd. The Melody Tent seemed to have it in for Tynan, what with the sound system producing a loud buzzing sound when he sang, "I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen." No matter. The tenors, wearing dark pants and white jackets with rose corsages, harmonzied beautifully on "The Minstrel Boy" and "Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears," a contemporary song about immi-grants at Ellis Island.
They sang their hearts out for "My Heart Will Go On," and swelled into chords of rich Technicolor in "Danny Boy." This wasn’t three Irishmen and a lone fiddle, after all. It was three tenors on stage with a whole violin section. Some of the songs were about Ireland’s past woes, but this was an Ireland tri-umphant, as well as a tribute to Irish-Americans and all immi-grants to this country. The evening ended with the audience clapping to "Whiskey in the Jar" and the tenors holding hands and doing a jig to the rousing "Wild Mountain Thyme."