DOREEN DEFEIS IN RECITAL

The singing talents of soprano Doreen DeFeis, who made a local recital debut in Schoenberg Hall, USC, Sunday night under Pro Musicis Foundation sponsorship, might be described as very good material.

But DeFeis has yet to mold this material into a consistent product. She exercises her advantages sparingly, and she parades her insufficiencies relentlessly.

The singer was trained at the Eastman and Juilliard schools of music, and she has been heard in a number of small European opera houses. Sunday night, she sought to impose a would-be operatic manner on a long list of non-operatic music except for “O mio babbino caro” for the sole encore.

The DeFeis voice is big, bright and free but it is constantly pushed into edginess, and it dealt mainly in monochromatic monotony. There were a few exceptions to these disturbing habits. In Strauss’ “Nacht,” Duparc’s “Chanson Triste,” Argento’s “Sleep” and Turina’s “Fi Con Mis Deseos,” DeFeis floated a tone pure and lustrous in quality with a reasonably sure command of expressive nuance.

But in virtually everything else--Handel, Mozart, Debussy and Delibes, in addition to the aforementioned composers--the singer relied on a raspy full voice, devoid of shading or color and hurling every note above the staff to the top gallery with a violent crescendo.

The program involved five languages and, without the crutch of a printed text, not a word in any language could be easily understood. There are possibilities in the DeFeis equipment, but it will require expert coaching to put them in order.

Levering Rothfuss supplied well-adjusted piano accompaniments.