Varied Delights From Baritone Ford-Livene

From the recital stage, soloists--singers especially--tell stories, spin narratives, build emotional constructs. Nmon Ford-Livene, a most promising American baritone with national operatic credits, gave a first major recital Friday night in Marsee Auditorium at El Camino College Center for the Arts, and spurred his audience’s imaginations, creating several worlds for their entertainment in the process.

This was an auspicious debut for the handsome, competition-winning singer, who, assisted by his splendid pianistic partner, Victoria Kirsch, put together a beguiling, unconventional program that began with four spirituals--two of them unaccompanied--ended with an engrossing Rachmaninoff group in Russian, and included five persuasively sung Duparc melodies and an intriguing cabaret showcase anchored by eight provocative songs by William Bolcom.

Nothing hackneyed surfaced here. Ford-Livene used props, stage movement and a dramatic setting for the Duparc group, which nevertheless succeeded through artful singing and word connection. Both he and Kirsch spoke charmingly to the audience; they changed their informal but undistracting attire several times, and they regularly delighted the listener with the pointedness of their music-making.

Ford-Livene’s voice is attractive and he uses it to dramatic effect at all times. Still, its sound, strong on top but weak in the bottom octave, does not strike one as unambiguously operatic. The baritone may not yet have found his niche--although, from all the exciting evidence on Friday, it could be the recital stage.

Encores brought more pleasure at the end: the spiritual “Li’l David Play on Your Harp” and Ravel’s “Chanson a boire,” which the performers dedicated to the memory of their mentor, Martial Singher, who died 10 years ago.