A performance fit for royalty

What do you do when you’ve triumphed in every major opera house, performed with every major orchestra in the world and are spoken of in certain circles in tones reserved for royalty? When you’re Frederica von Stade, it’s simple: Be yourself.

At the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sunday evening, the celebrated mezzo delivered yet another recital that demonstrated both her immediate charm and her considerable musical expertise.

The program, as one expects from Von Stade, was carefully rehearsed and meticulously designed to showcase her vocal and dramatic talents.

What the evening lacked in daring, it more than made up in variety. Von Stade and her accompanist, Martin Katz, performed a wide range of material -- including recital standards by Faure, Argentine folk songs and even some racy (and too rarely performed) cabaret numbers by Arnold Schoenberg.

Von Stade rarely sings in opera these days, but she can still deliver an aria -- as displayed in excerpts from Bizet and Thomas.

Her Carmen and Mignon may lack youthful vigor, but these losses are offset by her moving characterizations and excellent French diction and technique.

Apart from a boisterous encore of Offenbach’s “Ah, quel diner,” Von Stade rarely seemed to let herself go. The one exception was a collection of Mahler songs, which revealed that she is indeed human. Here, it was evident that her voice has lost some of its bloom and occasionally tightens in higher notes.

However, it was also in these difficult pieces that Von Stade was at her most expressive, and the highlight of the evening was most certainly Mahler’s “Liebst du um Schoheit.” Von Stade gave each of the four stanzas unique color and phrasing, descending each time into greater reserve, only to deliver the final call to love with complete abandon.

In a music world filled with next best things, Frederica von Stade (at age 58) is still the real thing, right now.