Severance Hall was near capacity Friday night for the Cleveland Pops Orchestra's "Broadway Baritones" concert, one of the  ensemble's most focused programs in some time. Music director Carl Topilow made sure the crowd got its money's worth.

Broadway stalwarts Gregg M. Busch, Michael Lackey and Douglas Webster had the audience captivated from the moment they strolled onstage, wireless microphones at the ready, and launched into "New York, New York" from Leonard Bernstein's venerable show "On the Town," the tale of three swabbies on shore leave in Gotham.

That brassy chestnut set the tone for the first half of the show, which was devoted to a nicely curated collection of classics from the Great White Way, including three very welcome numbers from Frank Loesser's "Guys and Dolls."

Lackey, fresh from his stint as the Monster in his own show "Frankenstein," led his colleagues in "Luck Be a Lady Tonight." Joined by Webster, he followed with "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." Then the three burly guys vied for contrapuntal prominence with a marvelous "Fugue for Tinhorns."

Webster also reprised his specialty, the "Soliloquy" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel," with which he brought down the house on his last Cleveland Pops appearance. Friday night, Webster's voice sounded a bit rougher, presumably from winter dryness or perhaps a recent bout with a virus, but he soldiered on and prevailed in time for the ringing high notes at the number's climax.

The Pops orchestra numbered slightly more than 60 players, a bit smallish for the Severance stage but luxuriously large for the repertoire, which in its native habitat is handled by a pocket-size pit orchestra.

The players sounded particularly fine Friday night, with crisp ensemble playing and near-perfect balances ably managed by conductor Topilow.

Medleys from Lerner and Loewe's "Camelot," Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King and I" and Jerry Herman's "La Cage aux Folles" gave them a chance to show what some of Cleveland's finest free-lance musicians can do on short notice.

The second half of the program suffered slightly in comparison with the first, thanks to the prevalence of items from shows of more recent vintage, including "City of Angels" and "On the 20th Century" by Cy Coleman, Frank Wildhorn's "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and Andrew Lloyd Webber's inevitable " The Phantom of the Opera."

If there's anything that sets this newer stuff a notch or two below the musicals of Broadway's golden age, it's a lack of genuine melodicism. Coleman, Herman, Wildhorn and Lloyd Webber have the knack for creating numbers that fill the formal requirements of the musical, but after the magic of Bernstein, Loesser, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, the tunes from the current crop seemed more a matter of going through the motions and meeting expectations.

Nevertheless, singers and players gave their best, and the clever encore returned things to a higher note, with Topilow making his Severance Hall singing debut as part of the quartet for "Standin' on the Corner" from Frank Loesser's "The Most Happy Fella."