THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 12, 1995 TAG: 9512120307
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music review
SOURCE: BY PAUL SAYEGH SPECIAL, TO THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Recitals come in different sizes and shapes, but that offered by mezzo-soprano Brenda Boozer on Saturday evening at Portsmouth's Willett Hall was definitely unusual. A veteran of opera stages all over the world, Boozer seemed to be participating in an opera in which the diva played all the main roles: Diva as good ol' girl, Diva as mother, Diva as resilient performer who can handle anything, etc.
Opera singers, used to performing in costume and portraying characters, are not always comfortable in the more intimate setting of the recital hall. Here, the singer communicates directly through song, and at its best, the listener can feel a unique closeness to the performer. This quality was missing so consistently in Boozer's performance that one wondered what attracted her to the recital stage in the first place.
Her program was puzzling. Announced were a set of Mahler's songs, three Canteloube French folk songs and a Mozart song, but only one Mahler and one Canteloube were performed, and the Mozart disappeared completely.
Sequencing was equally mysterious, and in the case of Ricky Ian Gordon's brassy, Bernstein-like ``Port Town'' immediately following Mahler's quiet and introspective ``Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen'' (I am lost to the world), highly unmusical.
Boozer's voice projected well, though it was not helped by the flat and unresonant Willett Hall acoustics. To her credit, she used a microphone for talking to the audience, but she turned it off when she sang. Her lower voice was rich and dark, despite a vibrato that threatened to get out of control. The sound in her upper register was less full, though she was capable of some lovely soft phrases; at louder volumes, the top range lost color and sounded tentative.
Not surprisingly, her most successful moments came in the ``Habanera'' from Bizet's ``Carmen,'' where she used the entire stage to sing and act the proud gypsy convincingly.
Most of the time, her energy seemed centered on her dialogue with the audience, during which she revealed a great deal about her career and her personal life. Her singing communicated much less, other than a desire to please and entertain (and perhaps not tax the audience with too much Mahler).
Ford Lallerstedt was the able accompanist. In yet another odd occurrence, he played a solo improvisation on two themes from ``Jurassic Park.'' by CNB