Alert the media: Mobile has caught the Broadway Bug.

Most of us knew that, but the indisputable evidence came Thursday night when Mobile Opera broke with tradition and presented "Bravo Broadway!" It marked the first time the organization has presented a third production. Three proved a lucky number indeed.

More than 1,500 - including a record number of single-ticket patrons - streamed into Mobile Civic Center Theater to hear a bright, engaging trio of pros deliver a Whitman's Sampler of show tunes.

Evidently a few members of the audience were expecting call-backs on their cellular phones. One of the evening's highlights - Doug LaBrecque's dazzling rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Music of the Night" from "Phantom of the Opera" - was interrupted by the chirping of a cell phone in someone's purse.

To further remind us that this was, after all, a Mobile crowd, the show started 10 minutes late, the intermission dragged on for 25 minutes, and stragglers wandered to their seats well after the house lights dimmed. Not really a Broadway audience, was it?

None of this has anything to do with the program, which got off to a rocky start when Beverly Stanky Corte, president of Mobile Opera, emerged to greet the audience with a dead microphone. Someone handed her a backup mike, which was even deader. So much for the pre-performance sound check. Eventually, someone flipped the right switch and the show went on.

LaBrecque performed brilliantly, as did his colleagues, Michael Maguire and Jan Horvath. The trio took the appreciative audience on a kind of Cliff's Notes tour of the Great White Way, from Cole Porter and the Gershwins to the man we now know as Andrew "Lord" Webber. God save the Queen.

From the opening moments, LaBrecque, Maguire, and Ms. Horvath were relentlessly charming, funny and in fine voice. The men wore tuxedos; Ms. Horvath showed a keen fashion sense with glittering gowns in a palette that ranged from stunning blue to magenta to basic black. Bravo indeed.

The singers blended their considerable talents on such standards as "Together Wherever We Go" (from "Gypsy"), "I Got Rhythm" (from "Girl Crazy"), "All that Jazz" (from "Chicago") and the obligatory "One Singular Sensation" from "A Chorus Line".

The three Broadway veterans also displayed their solo versatility. Maguire, a Tony Award winner as Enjolras for "Les Misérables", showed remarkable vocal dexterity with "Bring Him Home", the signature number for tenor Jean Valjean.

He also handled Cole Porter's deceptively tricky "Begin the Beguine" with a '30s panache that evoked a sense of languid days and tropical breezes.

LaBrecque wowed the crowd with his range and power on "This is the Moment" from the current hit "Jekyll & Hyde" and with his superb duet with Ms. Horvath on "Tonight" from Bernstein's "West Side Story".

Ms. Horvath savoured the evening's most poignant moments, starting with her beguiling solo "No One is Alone" from Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods". She saved her best for last, however, when she walked on stage to sing "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from Lloyd Webber's "Evita". Emerging slowly in a black sequined dress, her hair pulled back, she was the regal image of Eva Peron.