Milnes Displays Persuasive Skill

Baritone Sherrill Milnes brought a truly oddball, potentially cloying program to Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts in Long Beach Saturday night and put it over with unerring taste, genuine fervor and solid technical accomplishment.

On this occasion, the veteran singer, 61, showed little evidence of his much publicized vocal troubles of recent years. There were some steely tones and the occasional waver, but the overwhelming impression was of a fluent, hefty and persuasive voice.

And here, for once, was an operatic performer who didn’t embarrass in Broadway and light fare. Indeed, it would be difficult to improve on Milnes’ renditions of “There but for You Go I” (from “Brigadoon”), “Maria,” “I’ve Got a Ram” (from “The Devil and Daniel Webster”), and McGill’s “Duna”--every word and phrase negotiated tellingly. What’s more, in the large English-language portion of the program, Milnes’ diction proved a model of excellence, clear but never preciously over-enunciated.

His attention to words, pace, mood and color (he floated some silken head tones) even made such apparently corny fare as Loehr’s “Little Irish Girl” and William Stearns Walker’s setting of “The Gettysburg Address” completely winning.

A little less successful was his opening group of French arias by Mondonville, Lully and Gretry, the accompaniment a clumsy orchestral adaptation, the singer still warming up. His Schubert group was marked by strong feeling and resounding vocals, though his accompanist, an otherwise steady Jon Spong, failed to match him. At encore time, Milnes offered a lustrous “Shenandoah,” an ebullient “Champagne Aria” and, trading places with Spong, Britten’s arrangement of “Oliver Cromwell.”