MUSIC REVIEW : BARITONE HOLT IN DEBUT RECITAL AT AMBASSADOR

We hear so often about the importance of textual point in art song that it is good to be reminded that there is virtue in simply singing, as well as in singing simply. As Ben Holt demonstrated Monday evening at Ambassador Auditorium, how sweet it is to have a voice as well as poetic sensitivity!

The 29-year-old baritone was making his local recital debut on the Gold Medal Series, which seems appropriate, as Holt must have many from the major competitions he has won. How he did so was easy to hear.

Holt’s voice covers a wide range easily. Though a truly lyrical voice, it has power at both ends of the scale and maintains focus and resonance at any dynamic. And Holt can coax all manner of timbral tricks from it.

The program was a routine sampler in format, but none of the music was stale, and all of it was approached with taste and intelligence.

An opening set of Baroque or early Classical arias is almost obligatory, but Holt made his choices ring with care and conviction. Da capo arias by Handel and the West Indian composer Joseph Boulougne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges) were skillfully and stylishly embellished, and Purcell’s “Hush, No More” rolled across the hall like evening fog.

Lieder also are required, and Holt offered five--two each by Schumann and Richard Strauss, and Schubert’s “Auf der Brueck.” His German was if anything exaggeratedly clear, but his singing was always natural--expressive, unstrained.

Holt has an ability to express characterization with gesture and posture that mirror the extravagant timbral variety of his voice. Those resources he deployed effectively in Ravel’s “Don Quichotte a Dulcinee.”

Acting ability stood two Gershwinesque songs by Howard Swanson in good stead, but the highlights of the second half were George Walker’s brooding 5/4 “Lament” and stark, anguished “Bereaved Maid.” Holt pulled out all the stops in three spirituals, arranged by Dett, but there the effects seemed calculated, like a bravura impersonation of a gospel singer.

The support of pianist Cliff Jackson in all this would be hard to overvalue. Stylistically informed and alert to every nuance, Jackson commands a broad palette and all-sufficient fingers.

Response was justly enthusiastic, and elicited two encores: Valentin’s aria from “Faust” and Britten’s arrangement of “Oliver Cromwell”--in a Cockney accent, yet.