By Chris Varias
Enquirer contributor

Josh Groban has the kind of powerful singing voice that could hold a theater full of his fans at attention no matter how simple the musical accompaniment or stage production.

Saturday at the Aronoff Center's Procter and Gamble Hall, the young classical-pop sensation chose to go the other direction, and still his voice easily held up to two hours' worth of big arrangements from a 15-piece orchestral-rock band. And his personality stood up to the smoke machines, video screens, dramatic lighting and other Celine Dion-goes-to-Vegas-style miscellanea.

Groban's rise to stardom began in 2001, when he performed "To Where You Are" on an episode of the TV show "Ally McBeal" dedicated to 9/11. Since that time, Groban has established himself as the closest performer vocal-pop lovers have to Dion, albeit a male version - a multilingual singer prone to over-the-top performance, who can stir a crowd whether belting in a Romance language or his primary tongue of English. And that was exactly the case at the Aronoff, as a sold-out room of over 2,600 (many of whom were female admirers of all ages), swooned to his Italian, Spanish and English renderings.

"To Where You Are" was one of several English-sung highlights of the show, as was "Broken Vow," one of the big-production numbers in which he delivered the melodramatic ballad while standing atop a moving set of stairs like some sort of operatic light-pop crossover superhero.

During "Let Me Fall," a see-through screen lowered, dividing the stage from the audience, and vague images of what looked like ancient ruins flickered upon it. From behind the screen Groban could be seen climbing a staircase, so the entire visual image was one of a man lost in song while on an archeological dig, which may have not been Groban's intention. The song ended with Groban falling backwards from the top of the staircase into the dark, triggering "ooh's and aah's" from the crowd.

The best moments were both light on production and musically simple. The Italian-sung "Caruso" was a stirring, introspective look at the life of a performer, with the lyrics translated to English and projected on a screen to drive home the message.

Groban stood and sang for most of the show, so remarkably it was during "Remember When it Rained," when seated at a baby grand piano, that he delivered what was by far his strongest vocal performance of the night, earning a standing ovation.