MUSIC REVIEW : An Exquisite--Perhaps Too Exquisite--Recital

Kathleen Battle, who gave a frenetically cheered recital at Royce Hall on Saturday, used to be a wonderful singer. Now, for better or worse, she is a phenomenon.

Make that a capital P.

The diva from Portsmouth, Ohio, and the Met is reportedly temperamental behind the scenes. On the concert platform, however, she never roars. She just purrs. Sweetness and light are her middle names.

She sweeps onstage in a black strapless creation with a massive and puffy red train, looking for all the world like a vision torn from the pages of Vogue. A program credit identifies her couturier: the costume designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian.

She beams innocent radiance, flashes perfect dimples, acknowledges her entrance ovation with downcast eyes and an irresistible what-all-this-for-little-me? smile.

Then, after a courtly nod to Martin Katz--her magnificent, super-attentive, marginally deferential accomplice at the keyboard--she sings. How she sings.

This woman could charm the canaries out of their cages and the planes out of the sky. She makes moonbeams audible, almost tactile. Her voice conjures up a whole symphony of silver bells.

The instrument isn’t large, of course, but it is perfectly focused, amazingly pure, startlingly clear. It rises to high--sometimes very high--climaxes with shimmering ease. It can be the nimble voice of a coloratura acrobat (observe how she turns those trills), and it can be the languid voice of a lyrical ingenue, depending on the mercurial needs of any given moment.

Unlike many a colleague-- rival is almost meaningless here--Battle doesn’t seem to know what a pitch problem is. She cares, moreover, about moods as well as tones, about words as well as lines. She has a rare appreciation for the value of legato projection. Although her dynamic range may be limited, she can float ravishing pianissimo phrases at one extreme and rise to relatively dazzling forte climaxes at the other.

The petite diva, now 44, would seem to have everything: voice, brains, looks, taste, finesse, fame.

She is indecently gifted. In fact, she would seem to lack only one important resource: the gift to be simple.

Her recitals these days strike the recalcitrant few who are immune to her bewitchery as exquisite essays in manipulation. Every step, every gesture, every pose, every vocal inflection seems carefully choreographed. There is little room here for spontaneity.

Every song becomes an oh-so-precious mini-drama. Every nuance is painstakingly manicured. Every sigh is studiously articulated.

Every expressive ploy, moreover, is reinforced with a distracting set of semaphoric motions. Call it the Battle breaststroke.

After the second song on the program, at least one member of the admiring throng--this member--began to grow impatient. If only she would stop emoting. If only she would stop sculpting florid phrases in the air. If only she would just stand still and sing. If only someone would tie her pretty hands behind her pretty back.

Occasionally, Battle’s physical mannerisms seemed to reflect vocal mannerisms. She has become very liberal in her use of ritards, in her recourse to tempo extremes and in her dissection of meanings behind meanings.

Still, a soprano who thinks too much is preferable to one who thinks too little. And, badness knows, we have enough of those.

The generous program at UCLA began gently if not meekly with a couple of Purcell airs. Six Schumann Lieder followed, each demonstrating a different degree of introspection. Five songs of Richard Strauss continued the Innigkeit survey, without achieving maximum pathos either in rapture or in repose.

Interpretive matters improved after intermission with a quartet of melodies by Bizet. Each turned out to be a delicate study in sensuous poise.

The evening reached a poignant climax with “Honey and Rue,” a song cycle written for Battle by Toni Morrison and Andre Previn and commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial celebrations last year. Previn complemented Morrison’s bittersweet, unsentimental poems with remarkably effective, deceptively plain music, culminating in an aria of bluesy stoicism, “Take My Mother Home.”

Battle followed this tour de force with a marathon of encores, including two spirituals (“Good News” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”), some operetta flirtation (“Mein Herr Marquis” from “Die Fledermaus”), a little Puccini schmaltz (“O mio babbino Caro”), some exultant Mozart (“Alleluja”) and a teensy-weensy-cutesy Spanish ditty (title unfortunately uncaught). For all we know, she’s still singing now.

At one point, an overwrought fan found himself moved to interrupt the silence between numbers with a fortissimo declaration of conspicuous affection: “Miss Battle, we love you.”

The sentiment was shared by most.