MUSIC REVIEW : Soprano Anderson Returns to Ambassador Auditorium

Returning to Southern California for her second appearance at Ambassador Auditorium--the first was in January, 1991--soprano June Anderson showed again her unique vocal endowment, her abundant technical resources and an engaging musicality in a generous, but not overlong, recital.

It was also, in most moments, a performance beautifully sung. Assisted elegantly by pianist Steven Blier, Anderson offered an unhackneyed program, well-projected in terms of tone and emotion, only occasionally marred by dry or raspy sound or by raw and raucous high notes--inconsistencies that never spoiled the interpretive insights being delivered to a sold-out house in the Pasadena showplace.

The soprano from Boston began in a Romantic vein, with four of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s “Risepetti,” love songs intended to be amiable rather than passionate. Happily, neither the composer nor the present singer remained cool in formulating, then delivering, the heated messages in these poems.

More familiar, but equally welcome, were four songs, in German and French, by Liszt. The most notable became “Comment, disaient-ils,” which, like the preceding “Die Lorelei,” rises to heights and intensity unpredicted at its beginning. Anderson and Blier gave it a wide range, as they did also to a later Duparc/Lalo/Hahn group ending with a touching “La Derniere Valse.”

For one listener, the only repertorial miscalculation came in a Bernstein/Rorem group, four songs in a trivial vein, the musical equivalent of junk food: saccharine, glib and insincere.

At the end of each half of the program, Anderson gave the paying customers full value in two showpiece arias, the first from Bellini’s “La Sonnambula,” the second, the Mad Scene from Thomas’ “Hamlet.” Both emerged full-out displays of limpid tone and technical accomplishment.

Two encores followed the program proper: “Il bel sogno di Doretta” from Puccini’s “La Rondine” and “The Last Rose of Summer.”

As in his previous Ambassador appearances, as pianist for Christopher Trakas and William Sharp, Steven Blier showed himself, with Anderson, a strong associate: musical, involved, supportive and fastidious.