MUSIC REVIEW : Hendricks, Scheja Return to Pavilion in Recital

Connoisseurs had a hard time Thursday night when Barbara Hendricks returned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

In an esoteric but illuminating recital, often exquisitely sung, the much-admired American soprano displayed some of the virtues for which she has been celebrated: a wondrous vocal control anchored in solid technique; myriad skills in communicating sense and feeling, including clear but unobtrusive enunciation; most cherishably, a simplicity of presentation that puts all emphasis on text and music, never on the performer.

On this occasion, however, not all was well. Hendricks’ silvery voice showed some tarnishing and wear as the evening progressed. Occasional quaveriness, a few moments of under-pitch attacks and hints of vocal fatigue--in particular in her third encore, Schubert’s “Ave Maria”--rose up to worry the observer.

More damaging to the listener’s sensibilities, however, was the distance put between artist and audience by dim lighting and small print in the program: The Pavilion’s house lights had been raised, slightly, yet not high enough to make reading the texts easy; furthermore, those words seemed to be smaller in size than is comfortable for most readers.

Without the words to this collection of important but largely unfamiliar music, listeners were left to their own, sometimes slender devices. No wonder a number of them were seen leaving at intermission.

For those who stayed, the pleasures increased. After a true connoisseur’s first half, made up of five Schubert lieder and seven by Richard Strauss, songs in which pianist Staffan Scheja and the soprano demonstrated the most fluent and effortless kinds of ensemble thinking and performing, there was no letup of intensity but a whole new second wind of pleasure in the music at hand.

That music included Alban Berg’s practically irresistible Seven Early Songs, Poulenc’s multilayered “Fiancailles pour rire” and four of Arnold Schoenberg’s “Brettl-Lieder” (1901). Here, Hendricks/Scheja specified and delineated all the many moods and nuances in this emotional kaleidoscope without confusion, over-interpreting or, even for a moment, grandstanding. Everything was there except the self-congratulations.

Four encores remained to cap the evening: Faure’s “Apres un reve”; Leo Delibes’ “Les Filles de Cadix”; the aforementioned “Ave Maria,” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”