O.C. MUSIC REVIEW : Battle Offers Slick Recital in Costa Mesa

Only the most jaded, world-weary concert-goer could have resisted Kathleen Battle’s first appearance in Orange County, when the American soprano sang a very satisfying recital Thursday night in Segerstrom Hall at the Performing Arts Center.

Everything seemed to be in place, and just right: a simple, bare stage furnished only with a grand piano; a large, welcoming and amusable audience; a varied program including both familiar and less familiar songs and arias; an unobtrusive but reliable accompanist; and on the singer, a gown of imposing glamour: a black, figure-revealing sheath enrobed by a contrasting white train probably eight feet long.

The famous soprano from Ohio--still the darling of James Levine’s Metropolitan Opera as well as of the most elite operatic venues in Austria and Italy--remains, at 42, an artist in her prime.

She sings important music authoritatively; she handles her silvery voice with aplomb, she makes programs that offer variety, color and climax. And she looks and acts like a diva.

And yet. . . . At this event, for all its glamour, and for all Battle’s polished charm, a lack of reality and of spontaneity became a subtext to the outer trappings. At times, one felt like an observer at a ritual.

Battle’s canny program lacked novelty, but was beautifully sung. Best was last: a group of five of Richard Strauss’ six “Brentano” Lieder, performed with gorgeous tone, beauteous legato and consistent ease, both by the singer and her solid pianistic partner, Margo Garrett.

Artifice and routine, in the best sense, marked most of the rest of the performance.

Arias by Handel, from “Serse,” “Giulio Cesare” and “Semele,” opened the evening, followed by a group of four Mozart songs most handsomely traversed. More heat, and more vocal coloration, characterized Battle’s seductive singing of four songs by Franz Liszt, concluding with a resplendent, “Oh! quand je dors.”

The intermission-breaking Rachmaninoff group began less than elegantly, with a flaccid and unfocused performance of the famous Vocalise; pertinent drama marked two subsequent Rachmaninoff items, sung in Russian.

At the end of the evening, Battle and Garrett obliged a very enthusiastic audience response with four encores: “Summertime,” “Good News,” “Depuis le jour” and Adele’s Laughing Song.