Singer breaks out of the Baroque

The rise of the modern countertenor has gone hand in hand with the exciting revival of Baroque opera. But as David Daniels proved Wednesday at his UCLA Live-sponsored recital in Royce Hall, there’s no reason for a countertenor -- or male alto falsetto -- to confine himself to the music from that period.

The voice is an instrument, and when it’s as expressive, pliant and agile as Daniels’, it can apply an intriguing range of colors and dynamics with equal success to Mozart, Faure, Handel, Purcell, contemporary American composer Theodore Morrison or even American folk songs.

In the opera and art-song first half of his program, Daniels revealed a velvety richness in Mozart’s sad “Abendemfindung” (Evening Sentiment). He found cooler, though seductive, colors in Faure’s settings of four poems by Paul Verlaine. He brought off with inspiring freedom the vocal pyrotechnics of “Vivi, tiranno” (You Live, Tyrant) from Handel’s “Rodelinda,” in which he sang at the Metropolitan Opera in December.

But it was in the English-language second half -- a song cycle of five poems from James Joyce’s “Chamber Music” by Morrison and, especially, four American folk songs -- that Daniels proved the universality of his instrument.

He sang the folk song “Four Thousand Miles,” for instance, with heartbreaking simplicity and “On the Other Shore” with gospel intensity.

The Morrison songs, which were written for him, were lyrical, personal and direct.

Daniels has a small to midsize voice, and he could be overwhelmed by pianist Martin Katz. No one could accuse Katz of being less than a sensitive collaborative artist, a fascinating musician in his own right. But the sound from a modern grand tended to be too big, even with the lid raised only to quarter-post. Many of the singer’s words were lost.

Even so, the sound remained glorious. Daniels offered two encores: Antonio Lotti’s “Pur dicesti, o bocca bella” (Mouth So Charmful) and Alec Wilder’s wistful “Blackberry Winter.”