‘Riverdance’ casts a torrent of enchantment

If this really is the farewell tour of “Riverdance,” the show is leaving these parts with its head held high, back straight, and legs and dance shoes blazing.

The current U.S. tour came to The Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts for the first of five performances Friday night, and excited an audience of 2,100 who were brought, appropriately enough, to their feet. The core of the show is the Irish step-dancing, with that unique posture of standing tall and straight while legs and feet do the talking. The approximately 25-member dancing troupe Friday were exciting to watch and crisp and clean in their movements.

But “Riverdance” also has other tributaries. The small Irish band on stage certainly held its own in most of the musical segments, and excursions into flamenco, Russian folk dancing and ballet were also skillfully conveyed. Performing standards are being held high, along with plenty of pride in a show that first burst onto the scene in Dublin in 1995. And yet, if one looks a little below the surface sheen of the waters and young dancers, you can see that “Riverdance” in a way is showing its age. The overall concept very much has a 1990s feel to it — a time when New Age and things Celtic were at their prime in merging compellingly together.

“Riverdance” rather audaciously exploited that with a show that attempts nothing less than to suggest the history of people (especially Irish and Irish-American people) from the beginnings of time to the present day. In New Age but now rather oldie-sounding mode, the synthesizer strikes up a haunting minor key. Cue some pretentious “poetry” read over the speakers by an over-earnest sounding Irish “poet’ (“Out of the dark we came …The sun is our lord and father”), and the show is off and running. Still, although one might laugh 15 years later, it isn’t with a sneer but rather an endeared sort of smile. Five years from now this all might seem highly edgy again. The intentions were always good, and once the show gets going, each segment — when taken on its own terms — can still be immensely enjoyable. Such was the case Friday as the opening “Reel Around the Sun” brought the dancers on stage for the first time. They immediately had presence, revealing attitude and showing and sounding off their feet at an almost impossible clip.

In its purest form with the arms straight down and motionless, the step-dancing can almost seem vaguely menacing. There was certainly no messing around; the troupe meant business. The course of “Riverdance” is to contrast these thunderous numbers with evocative, gentler pieces. A “Lament” played by a piper really did touch the heart with a beautiful sadness. Quite exactly why we get flamenco in the middle of the proceedings is a mystery, but one was happy enough to watch Rocio Montoya strut her stuff. The only segment that didn’t totally satisfy was the instrumental “Slip into Spring — The Harvest” which ultimately seemed like a lot of musical fuss over an unremarkable central theme. If this is a great musical composition, the band, for once, didn’t sell it. To make immediate amends, the first act was rounded out with a mesmerizing rendition of the show’s title piece.

The principal female Irish dancer for the evening, Alana Mallon, covered an astonishing amount of space with grace and precision, while her male counterpart, Marty Dowds, evoked memories of Michael Flatley with his panache and authority. The second act was no journey up the lazy river, either. Energy abounded during a long sequence set in the “New World,” especially in the number “Trading Taps,” which rat-a-tat-tatted on the stage floor, and for once in the show (it must be said), actually had some humor. By this point you knew that the finale would be rousing and probably spectacular — and great expectations were met. You could make a case for crying a bit of a river that such a piece of live theatrical entertainment is heading for some cold storage. But judging by the tremendous enthusiasm of Friday’s audience with their lengthy standing ovation, it is doubtful that “Riverdance” will be in dry dock for very long.