YMA SUMAC AT CINEGRILL

Yma Sumac’s remarkable four-octave singing, her Peruvian Sun Virgin poses and prepackaged exoticism was a highly specialized taste, even in her salad days in the early 1950s.

She virtually disappeared from the public stage in the ‘70s, but a decade of silence before her return to public performing in 1984 merely seem to whet the appetite of her persistently loyal audience.

Thursday, Sumac opened at the Cinegrill in one of the intermittent appearances she has been making since the revival of her career, singing a program that mixed contemporary love songs (apparently composed by her) with more typical pieces of Incan exotica from her early Capitol albums.

Her voice--once marveled at by such dependable authorities as composer Virgil Thomson, soprano Jarmila Novotna and critic Albert Goldberg--is still one of the most astonishing instruments ever captured on vinyl. Chirping like a bird, roaring like a basso profundo, warbling, growling, scat-singing in some odd approximation of Incan bebop, Sumac produced sounds that would make a radical avant-gardist green with envy.

But Sumac’s performance was more than an aural freak show. Her passion and occasional playfulness, her stately mezzo-soprano (now her most dependable range) and priestess-like hauteur contained the seeds of a provocative, unusual cabaret act.

Unfortunately, her current musical arrangements and backup group failed to appreciate her capacity for musical magic, and descended far too frequently into obvious and inappropriate funk patters.

And without the mystery, even the legendary Sun Virgin can become just another quick thrill.

Sumac continues at the Cinegrill through Saturday.