MUSIC REVIEWS : Lakes Warms Up to Pasadena

Until his final group, four poignant and emotion-rich songs by Paolo Tosti, the exact condition of Gary Lakes’ voice, at his Ambassador Auditorium recital Saturday night, was not clear.

Early on, in arias by Handel and a varied selection of lieder by Beethoven and Schubert, as well as an aria from Wagner’s “Rienzi,” the American tenor, who has been on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera since 1985, appeared by turns partially indisposed and vocally inconsistent, if not actually in bad voice.

Then, after this long and challenging--if artistically rewarding--program, which also included groups of songs by both Faure and Griffes, he seemed at last to have warmed up and come into the sunshine. Sung with genuine, heartbreaking intensity and a bona-fide Italian sound, the four Tosti songs elicited justified cheers from the Ambassador audience.

The two following, breathtakingly disparate encores ought to be listed in the Guinness Book of Records: “Mother Machree” and “Wintersturme,” from “Die Walkure.”

Still, and not surprisingly, Lakes excelled in both, delivering the direct and touching emotions of the old Irish chestnut as deftly as he did the more devious messages of Wagner’s aria.

One wonders only what the third, untaken, encore would have been.

Despite the tenor’s recalcitrant warming-up, this recital represented no disappointment from the observer’s side. Communicative singing, whatever one’s temporary condition, is what separates the elite from the ordinary, and the 42-year-old Texas native is without doubt one of the elite among contemporary recitalists.

He touches an audience not only with the variety of musical sounds at his command but also with the depth of his projected emotional palette. He pronounces English, German, French and Italian with clarity and point and utter comprehensibility, finds the core of humanity in each song he sings and gives the listener a shared experience.

Among other high points in this faceted experience were Schubert’s “Der Doppelganger,” given a most chilling performance, “Lydia” and “Prison,” in the exquisite Faure group, Jose’s Flower Song, from Bizet’s “Carmen,” in which Lakes produced as quiet and firm a soft B-flat as some others only dream about, and, most touchingly, Tosti’s “Non t’amo piu.

Dan Saunders, who played so handsomely for Lakes here in 1991, did so again.