MUSIC REVIEW : A Nostalgic Night With Hermann Prey

Aging singers never die. They just give recitals. Thursday night it was Hermann Prey’s turn at Ambassador Auditorium.

Los Angeles has enjoyed a long love affair with the German baritone, now 62. He first came here, with the San Francisco Opera as Rossini’s Figaro and Olivier in Strauss’ “Capriccio,” 28 years ago. He has appeared on our concert stages relatively often in the interim, and has been a familiar fixture on recordings, in operatic films and on broadcasts.

Unlike Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Prey never was a thinking-person’s singer. Where his older rival probed for intellectual insights, Prey tended to rely on instinct. He was more spontaneous, more endearing, less mannered, less formidable--and certainly more superficial.

For many listeners, that hardly mattered because Prey commanded more sensuous vocal equipment. His wide-ranging lyric baritone conveyed instant warmth, infectious bonhomie. His tone, always bright and pliant, really blossomed at the top. He applied it with easy suavity to a variety of challenges that embraced Viennese operetta and Bach cantatas, Beethoven songs and Verdi arias.

In some ways, the passing years have been kind to him. His unaffected, enthusiastic persona still exerts its appeal across the footlights (even when he nervously conducts the piano interludes). His voice still sounds reasonably fresh and, at low range, remarkably resonant. It also remains gratifyingly steady.

It doesn’t sound too much, however, like the voice we used to love. It has gotten darker, deeper and thicker. The top of the scale has begun to shrink. Soft phrases often emerge as croons. Breath control is chancy. Legato phrases sometimes sound effortful, and the pitch, especially in ascending passages, tends to sag.

A more cerebral artist--Fischer-Dieskau, for instance--might call upon interpretive niceties to minimize, or at least camouflage, such problems. Prey, unfortunately, isn’t that resourceful.

For his Ambassador program, he chose a mixed grille dominated by familiar challenges. Resting on his laurels, he offered his enthusiastic admirers much nostalgic style, not so much vocal substance.

This wasn’t exactly what one could call an ambitious program. Prey deleted four major entries from the schedule, and the items that remained were not particularly taxing. Even with a long intermission, the formal part of the agenda ended at 9:35. For his four easy encores, the singer served bonbons.

The evening began rather ponderously with two songs of Beethoven and three ballads of the vastly underrated Karl Loewe. The latter’s haunting “Erlkonig,” a perfectly viable alternative to Schubert’s more celebrated setting, was compromised by Prey’s decision to employ bizarre ritards whenever he invoked (in falsetto) the eerie tones of the deathly spirit.

Cheery bluster outweighed suave bravura in a simplified version of Mozart’s “Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo.” Contrary to Ambassador’s program note, incidentally, Guglielmo’s alternate showpiece is often restored to “Cosi fan Tutte” performances. Audiences recently enjoyed it even at the Music Center Opera and in San Diego.

After a rousing “Non piu andrai” and a lengthy intermission, Prey moved blithely from Wagnerian sentiment (Wolfram’s ode to the evening star) to folksy pomp (a ditty from Kreutzer’s “Nachtlager von Granada”) to poetic miniatures (a little Schubert, a little Strauss). Most notable, perhaps, among the Lieder was Schubert’s “Wanderer,” which climaxed in a rolling, descending cadence worthy of a genuine basso profondo.

Charm came with the encores, beginning with a signature piece: Papageno’s “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen.” Prey described a beguiling Beethoven curio of 1719, “Selbstgesprach,” as “the first boogie-woogie” and swung the music accordingly. He yodeled cannily, pattered sweetly in an excerpt from Heinrich Berte’s “Das Dreimadelhaus” (a.k.a. “Lilac Time,” a.k.a. “Blossom Time”). Finally, he sent everyone--well, almost everyone--home happy with--what else?--Brahms’ Lullaby.

Tha fans applauded lustily, even when Prey clearly wanted no applause at all. It was one of those nights.

Leonard Hokanson provided facile, generally unyielding accompaniment at the keyboard.