MUSIC REVIEW : Highs, Lows for Ziegler

Just over six years ago, mezzo soprano Delores Ziegler made her auspicious local debut in a San Diego Opera production of Bellini’s “Norma.” Since then, the young American singer has established an enviable record in American and European opera houses as a specialist of Mozart and bel canto.

On Sunday night, Ziegler offered another aspect of her vocal gift in a sophisticated solo recital at La Jolla’s Sherwood Auditorium. Her program, sponsored by the San Diego Opera, was a mixture of triumph and trial.

On the triumph side of the ledger, Ziegler’s four songs from Aaron Copland’s “Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson” encompassed the irony and humor of Dickinson’s verses, as well as the composer’s sense of mystery and metaphysical ambiguity. The “Dickinson” song cycle, an unjustly overlooked later work (1950) from the Copland canon, is a profound test of a singer’s interpretive mettle. At the other end of the emotional spectrum, Ziegler easily transcended the artifice of three of Mozart’s German songs, including “Der Zauberer” and “An Chloe,” with stylish animation and sprightly, clear-voiced articulation.

On the trial side, Ziegler had a pesky memory lapse in the first of Benjamin Britten’s four Cabaret Songs (set to W. H. Auden’s poetry) that caused her to start again twice, eventually completing the wordy “Tell Me the Truth About Love” by dropping a stanza. And her opening set of five brooding Brahms lieder seemed overly studied, an interpretation too cautious to sweep the listener into their dark orbit.

This caution was reflected in a tendency to cover her otherwise bright and clear mezzo sound. Unlike soprano Dawn Upshaw, who performed in the same auditorium earlier this month and exuded an infectious zeal for lieder and art songs, Ziegler seemed constrained as she meted out her songs.

Ziegler’s set of five Hugo Wolf lieder unlocked the dramatic flair that has contributed to her success on the opera stage. The familiar “Verborgenheit” swelled with passionate grief before it returned to the resignation of the outer sections, and Mignon’s song “Kennst du das Land?” was appropriately imbued with urgent longing.

Her accompanist Massimiliano Murrali provided sympathetic keyboard support throughout the evening, though his ideas tended to be small-scaled and overly literal.

Britten’s four Cabaret Songs (silly parodies related in spirit to Kurt Weill’s agitprop ballads and Francis Poulenc’s blase “Banalites,”) ended the recital on a humorous note. Had Ziegler sung the rest of her recital with the same freedom she found in these sophomoric songs, it would have been a memorable performance.