MUSIC REVIEW : GONDEK IN RECITAL AT AMBASSADOR

Vocalists often are stereotyped into two categories--the Mindless Singer with a voice and the Intelligent Artist without a voice, as Ned Rorem defined them. How happy then to hear a singer like Juliana Gondek, with both voice and intelligence.

The truest charms of her Gold Medal Series recital at Ambassador Auditorium on Monday night were in the personality and expressive nuance she gave each of her songs. But a big, clear, evenly modulated soprano added wondrously to those interpretive insights.

A Pasadena native, Gondek is forging an impressive career on the opera stage. Monday, however, she shone in greatest glory in art songs.

Seven “Canciones Amatorias” by Granados covered a wide range of emotion, from flirtation to rejection. Gondek projected them all with uninhibited freshness, in clearly enunciated Castilian. She lacked the last ounce of vocal weight at the bottom of the range for these songs, but turned Granados’ phrases with sensuous abandon.

A set of six songs by Richard Strauss were devoted to similar topics. Gondek captured the fresh wonder of “O suesser Mai” and the half-shy, half-flirtatious charm of “Begegnung” with an easy rush of open vocal grace. She tempered the nostalgia of “Allerseelen” with a sense of finality.

A chill feeling for things past also governs Morten Lauridsen’s cycle, “A Winter Come.” Lauridsen--who teaches at USC, Gondek’s alma mater--doesn’t scamp the bright ironies, but the sentiment sounds nonetheless sincere. He is not above word-painting, in a flexible tonal idiom at once accessible and sophisticated. Gondek gave his songs the benefit of textual point and understated vocalism.

The soprano did essay some opera numbers. She defined aching poignancy with the “Song to the Moon” from Dvorak’s “Rusalka,” but seemed less inspired with the stock emotion of her opening Handel and Mozart arias. She did, however, embellish tellingly Handel’s da capo return.

In all, Gondek was the beneficiary of pianist Roger Vignoles’ taste, intelligence, and smooth technique. Two encores--an aria from Verdi’s “Giovanna d’Arco,” and Chopin’s song “Sliczny chlopiec”--balanced the evening nicely.