DANNY BOYS; IRISH TENORS KEEPING OLD SONGS ALIVE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

If you crossed ``Lord of the Dance'' with ``The Three Tenors,'' what would you get? (No, we don't want to see Luciano Pavarotti in Michael Flatley's costume either.)

The answer is the Irish Tenors, a winning hybrid of those two highly popular stage shows. Performing Friday night at the Greek Theatre, John McDermott, Anthony Kearns and Ronan Tynan leave the Italian and German arias to Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, instead presenting pub classics with the polish of white tie and tails and the flourish of the Royal Philharmonic.

Sure, there are the old standards, ``Danny Boy,'' ``When Irish Eyes Are Smiling'' and ``Toora-Loora-Looral,'' but also ``Only Our Rivers Run Free,'' ``Sweet Sixteen,'' ``Voyage'' and ``Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?''

There is more than their taste in music that sets these three apart from Pavarotti and company.

Only Kearns, a 28-year-old lyric tenor who shifts easily from classical to traditional works, has made music his first career.

McDermott holds a degree in chemical engineering and was a circulation manager for the Toronto Sun in the early 1990s when he recorded a collection of traditional Irish and Scottish songs for his parents' 50th anniversary gift. The recording found its way to an EMI executive, who signed the Celtic tenor to a long-term contract. His solo albums already have sold millions.

``Up until November 1992, when they released the `Danny Boy' collection, I had no interest in going into the music business,'' McDermott, 44, said by telephone earlier this week. ``I asked my dad what I should do, and he said, `Now would be a good time to quit your job, because you can always get a job.' ''

Tynan's exceptional story, recently told on ``20/20,'' begins when, at age 21, he had both legs amputated below the knee because of an ankle condition. Just one year later, he began competing in track and field among other disabled athletes and went on to break records and claim international gold medals. Tynan, now 39 and a physician specializing in sports medicine, began vocal training at age 30 and was a medical student in 1994 when he won a BBC talent competition.

There probably is enough material in centuries of Irish folk music to fill many more albums and keep the tenors touring indefinitely. When they first came together in August 1998 to discuss repertoire, they performed a short-list of about 100 of their favorite tunes and left it to the producers to limit the selections further.

Tynan notes with pride that Ireland's history-rich ballads are alive and well in both private homes and public houses, particularly places like the Celt in Dublin, one of his favorite haunts.

Unlike the vulgar behavior seen at happy hour in American karaoke bars, Irish ``sessions'' have strict etiquette: ``one singer, one song'' and polite, if not rapt silence by everyone else out of respect for the singer.

``You don't have to be a fantastic singer at all,'' Tynan said. ``It's that you want to, and they'll clap you at the end. That's lovely, really.''

The facts

Who: The Irish Tenors.

Where: The Greek Theatre, 2700 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Friday.

Tickets: $37.50, $60 and $85. Call Ticketmaster, [phone], or the Greek box office, [phone]. Information at www.ticketmaster.com and www.nederlander.com.

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Photo

PHOTO John McDermott, Anthony Kearns and Ronan Tynan belt out the ballads as the Irish Tenors.