Celtic Woman, lounge photo: Left to right: Lisa Kelly, Lynn Hilary and Máiréad Nesbitt standing from left to right Chloë Agnew and Alex Sharpe,...
By the time you read this, the Irish conquest of North America will nearly be complete. And I for one wish to welcome our Emerald overlords, and humbly request that they call off their fearsome occupying force, which goes by the deceptively innocuous moniker of Celtic Woman.
Featuring fiddler Máiréad Nesbitt and four winsome vocalists (usually identified only by their first names), the elaborate production of lushly orchestrated Irish standards and original material by musical director and composer David Downes was filmed at a 2004 Dublin concert and broadcast on PBS in March 2005. It was easy enough to laugh when the lasses first infiltrated our airwaves, offering respite from yawn-inducing, Yanni-driven pledge drives.
But since then, Celtic Woman has been all but unstoppable, piling up huge CD and DVD sales (more than 4 million copies), seven U.S. tours and three more PBS specials.
The latest 73-city triumphal march, "Isle of Hope," brings the Celtic Woman juggernaut to the San Jose Civic Auditorium on Sunday and Oakland's Paramount Theatre on Wednesday.
The group's new incarnation features fiddler Nesbitt and Lisa Kelly and 19-year-old Chloë Agnew, vocalists at the original 2004 Helix Theatre show in Dublin, as well as newcomers Lynn Hilary and Alex Sharpe. All the Celtic Woman women possess shining countenances and strong, clear voices informed more by Broadway and the conservatory than Irish pub or céilí
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sessions.
For Hilary, who joined the production in the summer of 2007, the experience has been almost overwhelming. Even though a veteran of European and North American "Riverdance" tours, including six sold-out Radio City Music Hall shows, she still wasn't prepared for Celtic Woman's vast and avid U.S. following.
"I knew it was one, two and three on the world music charts; I knew it was a big show, but didn't have any idea how big it was in America," Hilary says. "I often try to not think about how huge it is. We've got kids who are part of the performance, so we try not to get too carried away with the whole phenomenon and we all have great fun on tour.
"I feel so lucky, I pinch myself sometimes."
Certainly, at times, Western Civilization has seemed defenseless against Celtic Woman. The group's first, self-named CD quickly took up residence on the top spot on the Billboard's World Music chart and settled in for a record-breaking 81 straight weeks.
That eponymous album was knocked to the No. 2 spot in the fall of 2006 — by the group's second release, "Celtic Woman: A Christmas Celebration." "Celtic Woman: A New Journey" debuted in early January 2007 at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and completed a Celtic trifecta, gently nudging the two previous releases to the second and third spots on the Billboard World Music chart.
If the fourth album has underperformed by the group's dominating standard, it's probably because "Celtic Woman: The Greatest Journey" consists mostly of previously released material. (There's no halting the Irish deluge, though. The top spot on the world music chart is now occupied by Celtic Thunder, Celtic Woman's unaffiliated male counterpart.)
A guest appearance recently on "Dancing With the Stars" drove home Celtic Woman's total U.S. dominance, as the group jumped from morning television to the sanctity of evening prime time.
So how to explain Celtic Woman's ongoing success? The 19-piece "Isle of Hope" production wraps well-trod material such as "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You," "The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun," "Danny Boy" and "Spanish Lady" with lavish staging and lighting, offering a full-blown spectacle.
"I suppose the main thing is the show's got all these different elements," Hilary says. "A lot of Americans have roots in Ireland, and everyone likes to connect back to their roots. You can have this sensation of homeyness to it. I can see how people who aren't from there see it as a magical place. Music is a huge part of life there.
"That's what we've brought here, a sense of Ireland, and what people want Ireland to be."
At a time when dozens of inspired young musicians are pushing traditional Irish music into a new golden age with their brash energy (check out Karan Casey, Susan McKeown, Cathie Ryan or Danú's Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh to hear some of the best female vocal talent), Celtic Woman offers an anodyne vision of Irish culture.
Perhaps that's its secret: painting Ireland in hazy pastels, a utopia devoid of history, blood and struggle. Whatever the secret, though, it's working.
By Andrew Gilbert
for the Mercury News
San Jose, CA
Posted: 04/30/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT
