Lean, tan, and living up to his image of the suavest of the suave, Julio Iglesias' opening phrases of "Agua Dulce — Agua Sala" pulled his enthralled audience into the high beam of his star power Tuesday in the first of two concerts at the Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts.
Pushing 60 and looking mid-40s, the singing songwriter turns women of all ages into ardent groupies, and even the males in the audience respond to his creamy baritone and his continental charm. In an era of cloned writhers and shouters who hammer you with their sexiness, the aristocratic- looking Iglesias proves that we are all push-overs for well-sung ballads and lyrics that deal with lost, found and celebrated love.
When he sliced into "Ne Te Tengo — Ni Te Olvido," followed by the beautiful "Natalie," the audience recognized it was seeing more than a mere supermarket of sentimental songs.
Clapping their hands and singing responsively to "Ae Ao," everyone quickly got into a party mood.
After three decades of flying around the world to sing his sultry songs in six languages, the former soccer star and lawyer seems disarmingly self- effacing, even though he holds the only Diamond Record Award ever given to a performer by the Guinness Book of World Records. It was for selling more records in more languages than any other musical artist in history — 250 million records worldwide.
His first English release in 1984, "1100 Bel Air Place," went multi-platinum, traversing an important bridge between European and American music.
Exuding a collective joie de vivre, Iglesias' cadre of top- notch performers demonstrated their versatility in a show that began with comedian John Joseph, returning for a second year, who again gave spot-on impressions of how Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan might have sung "Itsy-bitsy Spider" when they were in kindergarten.
Although Iglesias introduced his multi-talented performers from the stage, it would have been helpful to have their names and brief bios in the program. Sophisticated arrangements of "Abrazame," "La Comparsita," "Crazy" and an explosive "Bamboleo" helped show off the polished playing of saxophonist/flautist John Michalak, guitarists Antonio DeCorral and Daniel Feizli (bass), keyboardist Rafael Ferro and drummer Omar Hernandez. The stage nearly caught fire from dance interludes that included two incendiary tangos featuring Osvaldo Zotto and the dazzling Lorena Ermocida.
In fact, it was an entire evening of undulating movement from singer/dancers Wendy Moten, Natalie Reiter and a spellbinding goddess from Russia named Yulia Limberis.
Iglesias' duet with Moten in "All of Me" and with Reiter in "When You Tell Me" ranged from torchy to tender.
Iglesias seemed in a particularly chatty mood during this visit to the Phil. He spoke — not always clearly with Spanish overtones — about his four children, his joy of being a grandfather, and how this world has been changed by terrorism.
He explained that he knows a bit about its impact on lives, because his family lived through agonizing months of anxiety after his physician father was kidnapped by Basque terrorists in 1981.
Iglesias also started a buzz of excitement when he proclaimed his love for Naples and said he is thinking of buying a house here. When an enthusiastic real estate agent in the audience shouted out that she had exactly what he might be looking for, the audience erupted in laughter and applause.
From the audience's comments, it seemed apparent that Iglesias' mystique is more than a pleasant voice and show business acumen.
His sensual, pared-down body language separates him from other performers who slip into embarrassing self-parody as they get older. A lot of his fans, of all ages, seem to recognize that Iglesias is not only a dream merchant but a class act.