MUSIC REVIEWS : Harris at Ambassador

Soprano Brenda Harris, who sang Monday night in Ambassador Auditorium’s Gold Medal Series, is clearly a gifted young talent.

She owns an amply weighted and powerful voice, fluent and clear from top to bottom. Her rich and pure upper register can sustain the softest, floating pianissimo or tormented forte. There are yet some rough spots in her technique--an unevenness of tone, a labored trill--but, generally, she has the makings of a first-rate opera singer.

She is not a particularly resourceful singer, however, and her recital tended to lay this bare. Harris, who comes to us with considerable operatic experience (at the Minnesota Opera, Washington Opera and Opera Pacific, among others), proved not to be an especially compelling recitalist.

She was at her best where vocal fortitude and/or virtuosity could carry the burden. She twittered brightly through the coloratura bravura of Rossini’s “D’amor al dolce impero” and projected forcefully and daintily in Verdi’s “Ad una stella.”

Songs such as Ravel’s “Piece en forme de Habanera” and Berlioz’s “Villanelle,” however, revealed a lack of musical subtlety or feeling for elegant line. Her juxtaposition of Brahms’ simple, unaccompanied Ophelia settings with Strauss’ more acerbic and urbane ones was a good idea, but her straightforward accounts tended to obscure their differences.

In the absence of an engrossing musicality--as opposed to vocal gifts--her play-acting seemed a distraction. A more stylish and purposeful accompaniment than that provided by Elizabeth Hastings would have been, no doubt, a great help. Things being as they were, she needed more works such as Handel’s showy “alma mia,” where her voice simply conquered, and fewer like Weill’s “One Life to Live” and Debussy’s “Mandoline,” where grace and nuance are the key.