MUSIC REVIEW : Leontyne Price in Recital: A Diva for All Seasons

There are sopranos and there are sopranos. Then there are divas. Leontyne Price is a diva.

They don’t make them like that anymore.

Watch her sweep onstage in regal splendor, flashing a devastating push-button smile. Watch her elevate the simple practice of semaphore to a high, complex art.

Watch her cultivate that disarming if not disingenuous what-all-this-love-for-little-me? gesture.

Watch her clutch her heart. Watch her emote with bigger-than-life bravado. Watch her choreograph her own ovations. Watch her model two gowns, something to drape her statuesque form in spangly blue before intermission and something to create a softer effect in shocking, flowing pink afterward. Watch her deflect some of her birth-right cheers, with grandiose generosity, to her faithful, eloquent and ever-supportive accompanist, David Garvey.

Price, who helped Ambassador Auditorium celebrate its 20th anniversary Thursday night, knows what she is doing. And she has been doing it quite splendidly for a long time.

Although it may not seem altogether gallant to mention just how long, the statistics are no secret. Check the reference books. Mary Violet Price, a.k.a. Leontyne, was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on Feb. 10, 1927. Los Angeles first heard her in concert 38 years ago at Hollywood Bowl. In these pages, Walter Arlen took appreciative notice of her “dramatic stature” and “especially impressive silvery pianissimo.”

Some things have not changed.

Price’s position in history is secure. She took, and held, a proud place in the lonely procession of great lirico-spinto sopranos at the Metropolitan following Rosa Ponselle and Zinka Milanov. She bridged the gap between Gershwin’s Bess and Verdi’s Leonora, making the world of opera blissfully color-blind in the process. She retired from theatrical challenges, with dignity, in 1985, but continues to stimulate delirium among her ever-vociferous fans with recital programs that make no concession to the passing years.

And so it was at Ambassador. The agenda was broad in scope--an old-fashioned mixed-grille menu--and demanding in matters of range, style and technique. It was, in fact, exactly the sort of agenda Price would have chosen 25 years ago.

Arduous arias of Handel and Mozart served as warm-up exercises, followed by a set of introspective Lieder by the relatively obscure Joseph Marx and some heroic signature-piece Verdi. Then, in the pink period, came sensitive melodies of Poulenc, Duparc and Hahn, followed by a contemporary American group (Hoiby, Bonds, Dougherty) and the inevitable spiritual mock-finale.

The real finale--presented amid de rigueur standing ovations, tons of floral tributes and raucous choruses of bravo , not to mention an occasional sophisticated brava --came with the four encores. So did some of the most memorable vocalism of the evening: in Butterfly’s death scene, in the same “Summertime” Price introduced at the Bowl in ‘55, in “This Little Light of Mine” (“a favorite,” the diva announced, “of my mother’s”) and, most notably, in “Io son l’umile ancella” from Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur.”

The last aria told everything. Her voice sounding warm, poised and sensuous, Price traced the long, arching contours with extraordinary tenderness and purity. She offered an object lesson in the lost art of legato phrasing, and even capped the ultimate ascending line with an ethereal diminuendo. She mustered far more freshness, in fact, and far more subtlety than one heard at the Met a couple of weeks ago when Mirella Freni, a comparative youngster at 59, attempted the same challenge.

There were other moments that recalled past glories: the other-worldly downward glissando that climaxed an oddly free-and-easy “Summertime,” the exquisite caress of Poulenc’s “C” the insinuation of his “Violon,” the wicked parody of Hoiby’s “Serpent,” the arching pathos of Cio-Cio-San’s suicide.

It would be less than realistic to pretend that everything went this well. The almost-impossible coloratura of “D’Oreste, d’Ajace” from Mozart’s “Idomoneo” was merely approximated. The classic torment of Handel’s Cleopatra sounded labored. Harsh register breaks marred “Pace, pace mio Dio.” Much of the singing early in the evening seemed explosive, the tone raw and unresonant, the interpretations mannered.

Even here, however, one had to marvel at the extraordinary preservation of the singer’s resources. The top range is still in tact. There is no wobble. The only serious signs of strain involve sporadic problems of breath support.

At 67, Leontyne Price often sings better than many a soprano half her age, and she always sings better than any soprano anywhere near her age. In her own stubbornly independent way, she remains a diva for all seasons.