Opera’s Renee Fleming Delivers Vocal Thrills

The gifted and magnetic Renee Fleming gave her second recital at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Sunday night, this one under the auspices of Los Angeles Opera, and thrilled a hall full of enthusiastic fans. Her program was varied, and she had strong support from pianist Richard Bado.

The American soprano charmed with singing that is expressive and often beautiful, limpidly phrased and cannily communicative. Her high notes can flirt with inconsistency and sometimes emerge strident, but are usually handsome. Occasionally, her words lack complete enunciation, yet her musicality carries her through.

She began and ended the program proper most ravishingly, opening with a Handel aria, “Di, cor mio,” from “Alcina,” an object lesson in trilling and bell-like ornamentation, and closing with an impassioned group of four Rachmaninoff songs, in Russian. In between, there was an authoritative group of Richard Strauss songs, Debussy’s nuanced “Chansons de Bilitis” and three wondrous Emily Dickinson songs by Fleming’s friend Andre Previn. Just before intermission, she sang “Un bel di,” from Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” preceded by a clever arrangement of the pop standard “Poor Butterfly,” made by another friend of the soprano, jazz composer Dave Grusin.

Her encores were the “Magic” aria from Previn’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”; Rachmaninoff’s “Spring Waters”; Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro”; Duke Ellington’s “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”; and Marietta’s Song from Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt.”

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Renee Fleming sings this same recital at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, March 17 at 2 p.m. $25-$65. (714) 556-ARTS.