AT AMBASSADOR : BATTLE IN TRIUMPH OF INTIMACY

Kathleen Battle isn’t the sort of singer who thinks her primary responsibility is to bathe her audience in huge waves of thick, luscious tone. That is fortunate, for she doesn’t happen to have huge waves of thick, luscious tone at her disposal.

She isn’t the sort of prima donna who strikes oh-so-theatrical poses, pops her eyes and resolutely turns a song recital into a personal appearance embellished with a little incidental music making.

She doesn’t seem to be a diva who must bask in self-adulation in order to validate the admiration of her listeners, and she certainly doesn’t confuse operatic extroversion with intimate poetry.

Battle is an artist.

She is stylish, tasteful and imaginative. She is a beautiful young woman with alert, expressive features. She knows how to stand still. She knows how to concentrate. She also happens to be the absolute mistress of an extraordinarily pliant, high-ranging, ethereal lyric soprano.

Where others strive for bombast and easy pathos, she offers subtlety, purity and sweetness of tone. She commands a small voice and a big brain. That is far preferable to the converse.

Replacing the indisposed Margaret Price on Saturday night at Ambassador Auditorium, Battle offered a compelling demonstration of the powers of introspection and charm.

She brought remarkable clarity and poise to three introductory Handel arias, mustering a seamless legato where needed and remarkable dynamic variety within the intimate scale. Most important, perhaps, she made the coloratura flights seem organic, not showy excesses.

In two Mozart songs, “Das Veilchen” and “Ridente la calma,” she found and respected the elusive line that separates the cute and the precious. And she made a rollicking diversion of “Un moto di gioia,” the alternate aria Susanna never gets to sing in “Le Nozze di Figaro.”

She revealed a poignant sense of romantic rhetoric and dramatic shading in four Schubert lieder, especially the languorous “Delphine.” In the convolutions of Richard Strauss’ Brentano songs, she sang with glitter and sensuality that awakened happy memories of the great Erna Berger.

Although the folksy charms of Falla’s “Canciones populares” are customarily associated with voices darker than Battle’s, she brought irresistible whimsy to the lovelorn “Cancion” and infinite tenderness to the lullaby “Nana.” The “Seguidilla murciana,” however, cried for a bit more temperamental abandon.

Simple, wistful fervor illuminated four spirituals at the end of the program, a lofty, shimmering pianissimo capping “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”

Encore time brought a standing ovation that, for once, was deserved; another spiritual; a brilliant, sexy performance of Manon’s Gavotte; an exquisite delineation of Faure’s “Mandoline,” and the disconcertingly familiar liberty of a kiss on the soloist’s cheeks from a friendly usher bearing flowers.

Lawrence Skrobacs provided elegant, sympathetically muted piano accompaniment throughout.