MUSIC REVIEWS : A Vocal Rebirth for Sherrill Milnes

While the ads herald him as “the world’s most popular operatic baritone” Sherrill Milnes doesn’t really need such hype. Especially when he can still sing with the power and luster and impact in evidence during his recital, Saturday night at Ambassador Auditorium.

In any case, his performance bore little in common with the one he gave three years ago at the South Bay Center for the Arts--save for a similar program of Italian antiquities, German Lieder and assorted 20th-Century tonal music.

This time the 58-year-old singer seemed to be enjoying a genuine vocal rejuvenation. But no small part of his success was attributable to the improved platform, Ambassador being that little jewel of a showcase where all soloists (and audiences) stand to benefit.

Like so many others who make their careers on the opera stage (more so than in the concert hall), Milnes found his most compelling moments in the program’s dramatically expansive material rather than in the word-important subtleties of Schumann.

So it came as no surprise that for Rodrigo’s death scene from “Don Carlo”--the only big operatic number listed--he invoked the devotional fervor and poignancy his partisan audience (which included retired soprano Licia Albanese!) came to hear.

Earlier, in the heroic outpourings of Joseph Marx songs, Milnes produced the vocal heft and darkly shining timbre of old--although occasionally elsewhere there were some dry tones and a deficit of dimension. Not in the songs of Francesco Santoliquido, though, the best of them choice studies in suavity and languor. And hardly at all in the English-American group that included the nostalgic “Duna.”

By evening’s end there were no doubts that Milnes and Jon Spong, his rock-ribbed accompanist of three decades who always defines the very essence of the music, still thoroughly enjoy their customary game of role-swapping during encores.

Among those encores were an underpowered Champagne Aria from ‘Don Giovanni” and a rapt “Shenandoah.”