MUSIC REVIEWS : CHINESE SINGERS AT AMBASSADOR

It would be eminently reasonable to assume that of the billion or so inhabitants of China, there would be several interesting, even notable singers who were trained in the Occidental operatic traditions.

A reasonable . . . and correct assumption, as it turned out Monday evening at Ambassador Auditorium. Four Chinese singers of opera took turns delivering traditional Western selections and a few Chinese folk songs, with these last treated quite operatically. Their approach never stilted or encoded the music--one soon forgot anything unusual about the concert when faced with the generally fine singing.

Baritone Fu Haijing, for example, seemed to excel in the German material: His account of Schumann’s “Die Beiden Grenadiere” was firmly martial yet heartbreaking at the end. And the Count’s “Vedro, mentr’io sospiro” from Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro”--an obstacle course for even the best baritones--proved dark, powerful and even proto-Wagnerian in Fu’s virtuosic performance.

Tenor Zhang Jianyi won the audience’s biggest ovations for his fearless helpings of some operatic chestnuts: “La donna e mobile,” “Che gelida manina” and “Nessun dorma” were all warmly, even idiomatically, sung. Zhang has the presence of a major divo .

Zhan Manhua was a minor revelation: her performances of two Rossini arias (from “Semiramide” and “Il Barbiere di Siviglia”) were not only prettily sung, but the coloratura passages emerged with true Rossinian style and dash. Carmen’s Habanera, however, proved a little too full-blooded for Zhan’s reserved dramatic sense, though it provided no musical problems for her.

Soprano Hu Xiaoping was not up to her colleagues’ level. Her “Qui la voce” from Bellini’s “I Puritani” was limpid and agile, but she came to grief in the upper reaches, while a Rachmaninoff song and a Puccini aria were simply too heavy for her Lily Pons-like soprano. Thoughtless programming defeated Hu--as the encore, a bubbly, crisp run-through of Adele’s Laughing Song from “Die Fledermaus,” revealed.