Mirella Freni: A Long Encore for a Prima Donna : Opera: The Italian soprano is still going strong at 55. She credits luck and good instincts for her longevity.

“People ask me all the time, just like you, what is my secret, what is the magic? Why am I still here?” Mirella Freni, perhaps the last of the old-line Italian prima donnas, is speaking about her remarkable vocal longevity.

At 55, when most sopranos are musing over their scrapbooks, Freni is going strong, with rave reviews for her performances and an adoring international public. She is solidly booked for the next four years with opera, recitals, benefit appearances and a heavy recording schedule.

That schedule has not included many visits to Los Angeles (her last was 1983), but she pays a rare return visit to Ambassador Auditorium tonight.

Physically, the soprano doesn’t look like the stereotypical opera singer. Her figure is womanly and petite; her face almost lineless and there is no telltale sagging around the throat.

Interviewed while in New York in the upscale apartment she rents from her friend and colleague Placido Domingo (Is she charged a lot? “Enough,” she answers wryly), Freni tries to explain her longevity: “First of all, I have been lucky. God has given me good health and the knowledge of what I can and can’t do. I also know how and when to say no. I don’t believe in flying around back and forth all over the world (as Domingo is notorious for doing).

“I like to spend several months at least in a particular opera house. I insist on two months’ vacation each year and resting between performances, spending time with my family. Maybe that’s the secret.

“I love and respect my instrument. I was born with an instinct for what is right, the correct tecnica and I have worked on that mostly myself. There were many who said I would kill myself with some of the parts I did, but I’m still here.”

Freni is referring to the doomsayers who feared for her when, at the instigation of Herbert von Karajan, she accepted the roles of Desdemona and Aida at the Salzburg Festival. Later, she added “Don Carlo,” “Adriana Lecouvreur,” “Manon Lescaut” and “Ernani” to her repertory, all much heavier parts than lyric roles such as Micaela, Nannetta (the role of her 1962 Scala debut) and Mimi, which she sang early on.

Moreover, the soprano is proud that she has been able to return to such parts with ease.

“Often,” she says, “when you do the heavier things you can’t go back to the lyric ones.”

But one role she retired quickly was Elvira in “Ernani.” “You can hear the record and it’s not bad, but it doesn’t have the long, grand line which is best for me. It’s too choppy. In my dreams I would like to do Norma and Lady Macbeth, but that’s impossible.”

There is little that Freni has done which she regrets. She says she sang “Traviata” at La Scala in 1964 when she was too young. In actuality, her debut in the part was her only real fiasco. They booed her.

“But,” she says evenly, “I later found out it was a cabal. Some people came armed with whistles and those party favors which make a ‘pop’ when you pull a string. Openings at Scala can be like that, which is why I pay no attention when I hear someone has been booed. It only happens at openings.”

She smiles enigmatically when asked about rumors that circulated at the time that the demonstration had been arranged by fans of a rival and rather volatile soprano.

Some fans tried to create a mini-Callas/Tebaldi type rivalry between Renata Scotto and her, but it never really got off the ground. “That sort of thing is not in my character,” she says. As proof, she cites the duet recording she made with Scotto some years ago. “It was very satisfying to me. Renata is such a serious artist, so professional. I enjoyed working with her very much.”

When queried about colleagues she has not enjoyed, a laugh booms out: “If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask a question like that!” Case closed.

She doesn’t know why people call her the last of a line, but admits, “The young ones today are too much in a hurry, after the big fees quickly. They have nothing here and here,” she says pointing to her heart and her head. “My husband says we’re in the age of the plastic singer.”

This year, she opened the Vienna State Opera season as Elisabetta in “Don Carlo.” She could only give her old friend, music director Claudio Abbado, one performance, but she says he insisted one was better than nothing. In September, she opened the Metropolitan Opera season in New York with one of her specialties, Mimi in “La Boheme,” the role of her Met debut 25 years ago. (“I am so glad I got to sing in the old house. Why did you Americans tear it down? It was your musical history.”)

Part of Freni’s obvious security stems from her serene personal life. Although her first marriage to teacher and conductor Leone Magiera ended in divorce, for the last 13 years she has been the wife of Bulgarian basso Nicolai Ghiaurov. She revels in being a grandmother (“I have two grandchildren now and a third is due next month!”). Her daughter from the first marriage, Micaela, is an attorney, as is her son-in-law (“I adore him. He is having a great career.”)

She laughs as she tells how her daughter, with whom she is very close, described the boy she fell in love with: “Momma, he’s just a normal person, not rich or in music.”

The soprano maintains an apartment in her daughter’s building in Modena, her hometown, plus a pied-a-terre in Milan and the two houses of Ghiaurov in Bulgaria.

Although a soprano of her accomplishments could coast on her time-tested repertory, Freni took on Tatyana in Russian several years ago and last season added Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s “Pikovaya Dama” at La Scala and in Tanglewood. The soprano is also investigating Rachmaninoff songs for recitals.

“You may not know it, but I have sung Schubert, Wolf and Brahms. I have not recorded any of the songs, because others do them better. When the music touches you, language is no barrier.”

She has no plans for retirement. “As long as the health is good and the voice is OK, I’ll continue,” she says.

“When I do quit, I want to coach and teach, to give something back for what I’ve been given.”