All dolled up at the Pops

Palmer brings the edge but the fest needs more

Last night in Symphony Hall, Amanda Palmer brought some spark and much-needed edge to the Boston Pops's EdgeFest. On her own terms, Palmer, in strong gravelly voice, gave a richly satisfying performance that had this crowd roaring far more than most in Symphony Hall. But even she couldn't overcome the deeper tensions that make the EdgeFest a strained format.

First the good news. For old-school Pops fans perhaps not up on their Brechtian punk subgenres, Palmer is one half of the homegrown cabaret rock duo the Dresden Dolls, which enjoys an extremely strong local following. Palmer's fans turned out and brought their adulation, cheering the singer as she strolled seductively through an hour-plus set of tunes ranging from her signature numbers like "Coin-Operated Boy" and "Missed Me," to Broadway standards ("I Cain't Say No" from "Oklahoma" and "Don't Tell Mama" from "Cabaret"), to more introverted and emotionally direct material from her forthcoming album "Who Killed Amanda Palmer."

The new songs included a moving tune called "Strength Through Music" written after the Columbine shootings, complete with recitations of victims' names and, less successfully, actors representing the schoolkids. Ben Folds is producing the new album and Palmer, sitting at a Steinway grand, thanked him with a heartfelt rendition of "Brick." And the crowd went wild when her Dolls counterpart, the drummer-guitarist Brian Viglione, made a cameo appearance and joined her for a surprisingly straight-ahead version of "What a Wonderful World."

The set worked best when Palmer was most herself, doing her punk-diva routine on the elegant Symphony Hall stage. Keith Lockhart went a long way toward matching her spontaneity, at one point, getting booted off the podium so she could conduct the orchestra in "Coin-Operated Boy."

As for the orchestral contributions to Palmer's songs, there really isn't much to say. The arrangements were utterly competent but these songs, by and large, are not well-served by orchestra. Part of the effectiveness of Palmer's music derives precisely from its stripped down aesthetic, and the spiky energy that the duo brings to its material. Why swaddle Palmer's voice in a halo of strings? You certainly can't blame the venerable Pops arranger Pat Hollenbeck. It's part of a deeper problem with the current EdgeFest format, which is supposed to be about collaborative music-making, but ultimately underscores the distances between genres far more than their points of contact.

And the first half did not help matters. Before Palmer took the stage, the Pops Esplanade Orchestra (which, caveat emptor, is actually not the Boston Pops) played movements from Holst's "The Planets" with projected footage from NASA. The music was solidly performed but the choice of repertoire seemed completely arbitrary.

The irony is that there were genuine points of contact to be explored last night - just not in this fashion. Palmer's entire act has its roots in Weimar cabaret. She has been deeply influenced by the music of Kurt Weill. But how many of her fans know Weill's European work or that of any of his contemporaries? This material would have been a perfect way to open things up and show the roots of the edgy tradition out of which Palmer emerges.

Here's a radical idea for Edge-Fest. On the first half, have the orchestra play meaty, bracing, or otherwise mind-blowing repertoire from the 20th century - music that bears some actual connection to the artistic pedigree of the performers at hand. And on the second half, let the performers play their own music without orchestra.

If the Pops wants not only to reach young audiences but keep them in its orbit, what it needs much more than edge is artistic integrity. This would be a start.

Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.