The Guatemalan singer-songwriter Ricardo Arjona doesn't only make music in his concerts -- though only isn't a word you'd use for his songs -- but musical theater. His sold-out show at the AmericanAirlines Arena on Thursday night was a wonderful exercise in playful concept and passionate narrative. And richly captivating music as well.

Like the best songwriters, Arjona is an avid storyteller; but unlike most musical artists, he uses all kinds of theatrical and visual devices in addition to music to tell his stories, in a kind of musical pop performance art.

The tour is in support of Arjona's album 5to Piso (5th Floor), which offers a vision of urban life that's compelling, jumbled, mystifying, sometimes heartbreaking, always captivating. The show opened on an elaborate stage set of a slightly seedy, slightly cartoonish city street: brick buildings with laundry draped rooftops, a bar with blinking neon sign, a barbershop, while the nine musicians, plus actors, wander as bartender, cop, mailman, street musicians, before taking their places, on roofs, by the bar, or, for the keyboard player, inside a car.

Arjona entered as if from the elevator of the five-story apartment building projected in back, complete with people moving in the windows -- people who reappear in other videos elsewhere. Arjona and his musicians moved about the set, now gathering round the bar, now scattering on the rooftops, as if wandering comfortably through their neighborhood.

Tall and dressed in boho gentleman gear -- black jeans and sneakers, loose white poet's shirt, black velvet jacket and vest -- Arjona is a complex figure; now a confident, slightly ironic entertainer, now vulnerable and intensely emotional. While almost unknown among non-Hispanic North American audiences, he's a huge star to Hispanics throughout the Americas. He struck such a chord with the multinational audience at the Arena that sometimes he had to stop singing and wait, smiling in amazement, because the hysterically screaming crowd drowned out his voice.

Arjona mixed songs from Piso with older hits such as Mujeres, the sharp political satire Si El Norte Fuera El Sur (If the North Were the South), and Taxi (a rambling song with a surprise ending that he performed perched atop a box with a green Mexican taxi projected on it). Many songs were about isolation and alienation. On the rocking opener El del Espejo (He of the Mirror), he sang of being trapped in routine, desperate to the point of suicide, while a collage of city images flickered dizzyingly behind him. In the aching Como Duele (How It Hurts) he was miles from the woman in bed with him. Real snowflakes floated down onstage for Pinguiños en la Cama (Penguins in the Bed), as Arjona, his voice piercingly tender and clear, sang of love gone icy and resentful.

For Que Nadie Vea (So That No One Sees) he sat atop one of the buildings, building the tale of a boy hiding his homosexuality into an operatic howl, while musicians on violin, cello, and clarinet worked up a strident storm around him. The accompanying video, showing an emotionally tortured boy in vivid, heartbreaking images, added immeasurably to the song's impact - literal, but powerfully done.

There were plenty of lighter moments. The excellent musicians were playful and loose, with each other and with Arjona, working up a rich, often jazz-inflected mix, and generally seeming as if they were just having a really good time. Arjona brought up a middle-aged woman, visibly shaking in a way that was both comic and moving, for Mujer de 40 Anos (Woman of 40 Years), his tribute to women his age.

And he gave a long monologue about men and women that had the crowd roaring with laughter. ``You women want us men to be macho, but macho is a backpack full of complexes,'' he told them. ``Is there any way to get to you girls without lying to you?'' Then he proceeded to sing a rich ranchera duet about unconventional romance, Ni Tu Ni Yo (Neither You Nor I) with the projected image and recorded voice of the famous Mexican singer Paquita la del Barrio, first hanging out the balcony of the video building, then on a door sized screen, with Arjona leaning smiling up against her, playing with the image and with a complex idea, both in a beautifully melodic song.

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