THEY’RE NOT BROADWAY BABIES : Sure, Opera Stars Can Sing--But Can They Swing?

A lot of people are making noises about colorization of old black-and-white films, especially the classics. I appreciate their anger, because I have another, somewhat similar ax to grind.

It’s the new vogue of re-recording classic Broadway musicals with all the latest sound recording techniques and opera stars in the lead roles. No, they’re not adding color to these classics; these folks are adding coloratura.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bothered by the technological improvements in sound or new interpretations. These can breathe life into older works. Rather, the sore spot is using performers who obviously can sing, but whose abilities bloat the music, giving it the wrong, highfalutin tone.

Perhaps more than most, international opera star Kiri Te Kanawa, who’s appearing at Ambassador Auditorium in recital today (and Saturday in San Diego), is linked with this trend. In the last two years she has starred in the highly publicized--and criticized--recording revivals of “West Side Story” and “South Pacific.”

Now comes the coup de grace. It’s been announced that she will sing the role of Eliza Doolittle in a new recording of “My Fair Lady,” whose original cast album with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews is in a class by itself. The thought of redoing it yet again--with Te Kanawa, no less, is, for me, akin to the horrifying prospect of a colorized “Casablanca.”

Sing Eliza? Never. How could she, when I’ve grown accustomed to Andrews’ sparkling, 30-year-old original cast recording?

OK, so Eliza might be less of a stretch for Te Kanawa (she’s from New Zealand), she’s still the same Te Kanawa to whom most critics gave a thumbs down for a prissy performance as Maria in Leonard Bernstein’s re-recording of “West Side Story.” (The same Te Kanawa who sang opposite the Latin-accented voice of Jose Carreras, also said by many to be miscast as the American street punk.)

Yes, unfortunately, it is also the very same Te Kanawa who was hired by CBS Records to play Ensign Nellie Forbush in last year’s re-recording of “South Pacific.” When this character from Little Rock sings, “I’m a little hick,” you believed it from Texas-born Mary Martin. When Te Kanawa sings it, you might say there’s more attempt at shtick than hick. You can say this though about Te Kanawa: at least she’s “A Cockeyed Optimist.”

The whole concept of singing musical theater without the necessary attention to the songs’ dramatic needs is so wrong to me--a musical purist--that, at the risk of insulting Te Kanawa, I just had to ask: Why do you do this?

In a phone conversation last week, she told me she is “in heaven” when she sings these scores that she has loved since she was a girl. Her main goal, it seems, is to draw wider audiences for opera by singing the more popular musical-theater songs. “If they hear me sing these songs, they may come to buy a ticket for an opera.”

Regarding the criticisms--”embarrassing” is what reviewer Roy Hemming called her singing in “South Pacific” in the March issue of Stereo Review--Te Kanawa said the critics “haven’t stopped the public. . . . They’re coming to see me.”

I just don’t happen to be a member of that particular public. I’m one of those people who expects performers who can not only sing these musical-comedy treasures, but swing along, too. I’ve got this old feeling that musical-theater songs should be acted. (Not that all opera-trained singers haven’t been able to adapt: Giorgio Tozzi, Ezio Pinza, Robert Weede, Teresa Stratas and Delores Wilson are a few who made the crossover to Broadway.)

Could you imagine the spectacle of Placido Domingo singing “The Surrey With the Fringe on the Top” or Beverly Sills at her peak singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade”?

So what’s next? Why not Te Kanawa sings Momma Rose in “Gypsy” or Te Kanawa sings Ado Annie in “Oklahoma!”--she may be utterly wrong for the latter cowgirl part, but at least it would ring true when she sings, “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No.”

As long as we seem to be on this destructive, commercial course (“South Pacific” is reported to have sold about 600,000 copies in Britain and the United States), why not “popularize” grand opera? Out with the composers’ intentions. Let’s make a buck.

Let’s record another version of the war-horse “Tosca.” Joel Grey could play the romantic lead Cavaradossi, Sandy Duncan could do the title role of the florid prima donna. Think that would sell?

Rita Moreno would make a spectacular Bruennhilde in Wagner’s “Der Ring,” and can’t you just imagine Liza Minnelli as Butterfly?

While we’re at it, Lucie Arnaz would be astounding as “La Traviata’s” Violetta, Don Johnson might be amusing as Bizet’s famed toreador, and couldn’t you just see “Little Shop of Horrors’ ” Ellen Greene as Carmen?

Think of the sales these recordings might generate--then think again.