Marilyn Horne Returns in a Wondrous Fashion

In exemplary voice and with her usual panache, Marilyn Horne strode onto the stage of the Alex Theatre on Friday night and sang what will no doubt prove to be one of the most provocative and entertaining recitals of the season. Through five years away from a local recital stage, Horne has deprived her Southern California fans; returning, she delivered a reminder of her still-wondrous abilities as a communicative artist.

An apparently full house--the Alex’s capacity is 1,470--in the handsome Glendale showplace cheered the superstar mezzo-soprano regularly. At the end, when they would have welcomed many encores, she gave them only three, but exquisitely chosen and performed.

The program itself was a model of perspicacity and variety and lived up to the standards the veteran singer--now 63--has set for her nonprofit foundation devoted to keeping alive the endangered vocal recital. Through 26 items in six contrasting groups, she combined intelligence, humor, profundity and entertainment.

Perhaps less powerful than before, the singer’s instrument retains its healthy and youthful sound; signs of aging never appeared. Horne’s technique remains unassailable; more important, she uses it not just for display--which is one name of the game, after all--but to illuminate the texts throughout a wide range of artistic expressions.

It would be difficult to isolate peaks in this performance, yet the opening group of songs to Shakespeare texts--by Loomis, Quilter, Poulenc, Haydn and Finzi--gave deep pleasures. And the closing Leonard Bernstein songs, containing no chestnuts or cliches, proved another ear-opener. Haydn’s “She Never Told Her Love,” which we first heard Horne sing four decades ago, struck an emotional chord; in the Bernstein group, “What lips my lips have kissed,” from “Songfest,” made its points poignantly.

Through the rest of the evening--a touching Wolf/Brahms group; four unhackneyed Rossini songs; seven lively (yes, lively!) “Lullabies from around the world”--Martin Katz, for 30 years Horne’s partner at the piano, played with the expertise, musicality, kaleidoscopic expressiveness and dynamic breadth that has made him the dean of collaborative pianists.