Of course, if it's the right singer, drawing you in with charisma and a smart feel for a lyric, suspension of disbelief is instantaneous. You're in love. Who asks questions at a time like that?

Peter Nero is a regular importer of Broadway material to his Philly Pops stage in Verizon Hall, and the latest iteration, heard Sunday afternoon, uses revivals as its tenuous thread. As a theme, the idea of the Broadway revival hardly forms meaningful connective tissue, though Nero as host has a cunning way of making connective tissue where none seemed to exist before.

Musically, too. In his "Phantom Phantasy," Nero sat at the keyboard and led his band through a bewildering thicket, cushioning actual Phantom of the Opera material with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor and holding a brief bout with Tchaikovsky's piano concerto. He has the orchestra blurt out Ravel's La Valse at one point.

If it all seemed generously impertinent, it was also an occasion for a precious few minutes with Nero as pianist, bass player Michael Barnett, and drummer George Mazzeo. More of that, please.

Nero has great taste in singers, and this time he's brought back Lisa Vroman, Debbie Gravitte, and Sal Viviano. They're all pros, poised and in possession of full-throttle instruments trained in the art of spine shivers and rafter-rattling. Some of the vocalistic affectations are cliched, and Viviano's sound in particular is plain vanilla. He's a pro, but a bland one.

Vroman has a pretty soprano, and I'm glad she included "Someone to Watch Over Me," since it showed her capable of more emotional range than was apparent in some of the other tunes.

But for really charging words with layers, Gravitte was operating on a different level. Part of it is the voice itself, which could use its brass and rough leather for pivotal moments. But nuance expands her role beyond singer. "Some People," "The Party's Over," and "Sunrise, Sunset" are all dangerously overdone. And yet, with the backing in places of a 12-member ensemble dubbed the Voices of the Pops, Gravitte had that rare gift of bringing you into her world immediately and completely. She was all the context you needed.

Additional performances:

Tickets are $27-$104. Information: 215-893-1999, www.kimmelcenter.org.