MUSIC REVIEW : DAME JANET BAKER AT AMBASSADOR

In the 17 years since Dame Janet Baker began giving recitals here, little has changed in the British mezzo-soprano’s artful communication of a wide range of music.

Appreciation of Dame Janet’s elegant and unfalteringly musical singing has increased, however, to the point where her announced local performances draw ever larger crowds. Sunday night, for instance, when the singer appeared for a second time at Ambassador Auditorium, the house looked full, and additional temporary seating in the pit and on the stage held the overflow.

Now, as the first time we heard her, at Occidental College in 1968, Dame Janet deserves the acclaim of her reputation.

She is a noble singer, one who paints with tone and a carefully graded dynamic palette, who reveals expressivity and poetic touches where others merely traverse the material, who with careful probing digs deeply into texts and illuminates musical lines. In her frequent forays into the soft end of the dynamic spectrum, she has few peers, and no superiors. If, at this point in a long career, she admits a certain stridency above the staff into otherwise communicative musical lines, those lines remain largely unspoiled.

In 1985, however, the celebrated singer attacks the heart of each musical item with more aggressiveness and confidence than once she did. Among the many positive results are full measures of textual and vocal insights.

Sunday, in a motley program in which she was assisted handsomely and articulately by pianist Martin Isepp, Dame Janet recalled some of the glories of previous visits.

Framing the agenda, there was pointed drama and excitement in concert fragments from Mozart and Haydn. Then, early on, two poignant items by Monteverdi left some listeners drained and spent. Single songs and arias by Thomas Morley, Handel and Cavalli in the first half were balanced in the second by three songs in English by North American composers: Copland, Ives and Pasatieri. Smack in the middle were six lieder of Schubert, Mahler and Mendelssohn.

All of these disparate musical items might have caused an emotional roller-coaster ride for some present in the hall. For others of more hearty stripe, Dame Janet offered an ever-changing musical landscape, some of it pictorial, some of it heart-wrenching, all of it interesting.

Most touching may have been the two Monteverdi pieces, “Quel sguardo sdegnosetto “ and “Si dolce e’il tormento”; the two Mahler songs, “Fruehlingsmorgen” and “Nicht Wiedersehen,” and Mendelssohn’s “Auf Fluegeln des Gesanges,” the last as perfect a model of legato-singing as one can remember on local stages.

But the singer--gowned in appropriate, royal purple--delivered similar insights throughout the program. And her fans seemed to savor each one.

At the end, Baker/Isepp offered four encores: “Serenade,” by Gounod; “Love’s Philosophy,” by Roger Quilter; “The Lark in the Clean Air,” as arranged by Phyllis Tate, and Parry Hubert’s “My Heart Is Like a Singing Bird.”