Cecilia Bartoli Does It Again : Music review: In first Orange County recital, Italian soprano proves once again that she’s the real thing.

Cecilia Bartoli, who offered her first Orange County recital Thursday night at the Performing Arts Center, isn’t just the flavor of the month in the world of musical hype. Perish the ignoble thought.

She is an artist. The rare, real thing.

She also happens to be a personality--a musician who knows how to breathe independent life into every note she sings. She probably could make “Three Blind Mice” sound urgent, profound and witty too. And in the process she’d give you the impression that it was the loveliest thing in the world.

She commands a fabulous technique. No one--well, hardly anyone--before the public today sings as fast as she does and does so as precisely. But, unlike some other bravura specialists, she never makes difficult challenges sound difficult, never seems to show off for the sake of showing off. With her, every quiver and quaver, every fioratura extravagance, every climatic gesture has its expressive purpose.

Bartoli can sing suavely and elegantly. She knows the meaning of bel canto. But she never seems to regard beauty as an end in itself. She sings as if lives were at stake. Hers and ours. She sings with infectious joy. At the same time, she conveys the wondrous illusion of discovery.

Contrary to what her zillion admirers would claim, she isn’t perfect. When she isn’t in top form--and she didn’t happen to be at her best at all times on this occasion--her tone can turn a bit rough and raspy under pressure. Her voice isn’t particularly large, and it sometimes tends to lose focus as lines descend. Although her penchant for facial emoting can be charming or distracting, depending on the viewer’s tolerance, the habit doesn’t appear to be something she can control.

Given the generosity of her talent--and of her spirit--imperfections become virtually irrelevant. This artist makes her own rules, sets her own standards.

She could have come, sung and conquered with a program of hum-along hits. Instead she chose a sophisticated, uncompromisingly demanding collection of French and Italian art songs, often with a Spanish accent, saving a single showpiece-aria for the grand pre-encore finale.

She could have followed the dubious example of Lazy Luciano in the same 3,000-seat house--a house patently too large for vocal intimacy--and resort to a microphone. But evasion, pretension and compromise don’t seem to be part of her artistic vocabulary.

She could have competed with the usual white-noise whine of the air-conditioning system. Instead, she ordered the fans turned off, reasoning that good sound in a steam-bath is better than bad sound in a fridge. (If only she had also insisted that the management turn off those awful, amateurish slides of dancing 8th-notes projected atop the proscenium.)

In some ways, Bartoli doesn’t seem to be a creature of this century. While her stellar colleagues dash about in jet-propelled careers that can span three continents in a single week, she moves slowly. On this tour, in fact, she happens to be moving by train--in her own private car. That’s the way Patti and Melba used to do it.

Like those illustrious predecessors, Bartoli resists type-casting. She can sing an endless lyric line with equal parts steadiness and fervor. She also can take coloratura flight with dazzling fluency and finesse. She isn’t the natural successor to Marilyn Horne, whose voice in its prime was bigger, darker and brassier. But she certainly seems to be following--no, advancing--in the formidable footsteps of Giulietta Simionato and Teresa Berganza.

Bartoli’s local debut, sponsored by the Philharmonic Society, bore all the trappings of a special event. Hordes of would-be patrons begged in vain for tickets outside the hall. One doesn’t see that often. The stage was bedecked with a forest of potted greenery.

With Steven Blier providing secure, sensitive and sometimes needlessly self-effacing accompaniment at the piano, the mezzo-soprano offered object lessons in stylish communication. Resplendent--well, reasonably resplendent--in a puffy black strapless gown with huge white polka-dots, she conveyed three hues of romantic longing in a trio of songs by Bellini, four aspects of character pathos in Ravel’s “Chants Populaires.” She exuded soft sensuality in Ravel’s “Vocalise,” then strapped castanets to her fingers and clicked her lusty way through Berlioz’s “Zaide.”

After intermission, she defined poetic nostalgia in two seldom-heard melodies of Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Then, it was Rossini time, time for perfectly poised miniatures fusing Gallic wit and Italianate whimsy, time even for a subtle preview of the operatic Cinderella via “Marguerite.”

To send everyone except herself home breathless, Bartoli chose the rondo-finale of “Cenerentola.” With each hemidemisemiquaver in place and nary a smudge within earshot, it was exhilarating. Eloquent too.

The encores included an introspective “Voi che sapete,” a scary fireworks-display exhumed from Vivaldi’s “Griselda,” sweet old “Caro mio ben,” by Giordani, and, as an ultimate valedictory, the ever-accelerating bravado of Rossini’s “Canzonetta Spagnuola.”

The audience didn’t want to go home. Small wonder. It mustered instant standing ovations, cheers and ear-splitting whistles. The noisiest enthusiasts were unaware, no doubt, that Italians regard whistling as a demonstration of derision, like booing. Unperturbed, Bartoli waved, blew kisses, closed her eyes and thumped her heart in gratitude and, as a parting gesture, skipped off the stage flashing a devastating smile.

At her last exit, the Roman diva looked, for all the world, like the mischievous teen-ager next door. It’s a nice image.