BARITONE IN RECITAL : SHERRILL MILNES RETURNS TO UCLA

Informed opera lovers approached Royce Hall, UCLA, with some trepidation Saturday night. Sherrill Milnes was giving a recital.

Normally, that would be cause for happy anticipation. Milnes is the latest--and, perhaps, the last--in a line of great American baritones. That lofty line began with Lawrence Tibbett and John Charles Thomas in the 1920s, and continued rapturously with Leonard Warren, Robert Weede and Robert Merrill.

Although each was blessedly different, all had certain attributes in common: a big, warm, resonant sound, a clarion top extension, special affinity for Verdi, a commanding, extrovert manner.

At 52, Milnes should be close to his prime. His recent appearances, however, have been cause for concern.

Things did not go well when he sang the Toreador Song for the Statue of Liberty and a world of television viewers on the Fourth of July. He was decidedly off form as Iago in September with the Music Center Opera (the UCLA program magazine, in a monumental gaffe, confused our glamorous, new, big-league company with the modest, spunky and defunct Los Angeles Opera Theater). His recent Rigoletto broadcast from the Met was, to put it gently, problematic.

None of that, thank goodness, precluded a personal success Saturday night for the personable matinee idol who used to be a farm boy in Downers Grove, Ill.

On the basis of this appearance, it is impossible to judge the current status of Milnes’ once-brilliant upper register. He chose a somewhat evasive program that adhered, for the most part, to low ranges and low keys (sometimes uncomfortably low).

The voice did, indeed, sound darker and deeper than one might have expected. Some of the ascending climaxes flirted with strain and fuzzy pitch.

A purist might have noticed, moreover, that Milnes blasted stentorian fortissimos and whispered gentle pianissimos, but couldn’t always find an easy bridge between the dynamic extremes.

Nevertheless, he sang with pervasive flair, with emotional fervor, and with disarming, open, all-American amplitude. He remains an extraordinarily suave musical salesman, and he reminded an ecstatic, less-than-capacity audience that he still knows a thing or two about style.

The obligatory Baroque exercises, which opened the program, found Milnes more comfortable in the legato phrases of Lully than the coloratura outbursts of one Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville. Be that as it may, the noble throat had been cleared.

In “Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo,” the ornate quasi-buffo aria normally dropped from “Cosi fanTutte,” Milnes revealed maximum bravura and minimum charm. It was as if he, and Mozart, had confused the whimsical Gugliemo with the vengeful Count Almaviva.

Confronting four Lieder of Schubert, the baritone exulted in climactic operatic fervor, slighted poetic intimacy. The unabased drama of Ravel’s “Don Quichotte a Dulcinee” returned him, however, to his extrovert element.

After intermission, he brought ardor, spontaneity, sentiment, wit and impeccable diction to various American and English songs.

Finally, he gave the patient fans what they had been waiting for: a generous chunk of Verdi. Rodrigo’s Death Scene from “Don Carlo” sustained its poignancy even without theatrical trappings.

At encore time, Milnes volunteered anecdotes and told jokes. When it comes to concert hall sobriety, he obviously is no Fischer-Dieskau.

He also engaged his able accompanist, Jon Spong, in some well-rehearsed Mutt-and-Jeff routines. These reached a comic-virtuoso climax when the pianist sang--repeat, sang--the comic patter of Britten’s “Oliver Cromwell” while the baritone took to the supportive keyboard. Each performed his unaccustomed role nobly.

The more conventional program bonuses were Don Giovanni’s Champagne Aria and “Shenandoah.”

The UCLA sponsors, incidentally, labeled Milnes “the foremost operatic baritone of our time.” Period. Mindless hype is alive and well in the fields of academe.