In Recital, Graves Proves to Be Lustrous Company

A skilled and charming recitalist, Denyce Graves brought intelligence and beauty and a lustrous, flexible voice to her Royce Hall appearance Sunday afternoon. Also, some unconventional repertory that she promptly changed--toward the familiar.

No matter. Graves’ entertaining concert, well-attended by a happy crowd of fans, had sufficient variety and musical interest to hold her listeners.

On the side of predictability, the glamorous American opera singer--well-remembered for her Dalila at Los Angeles Opera last season--eschewed her scheduled, program-closing group of songs by Montsalvatge and substituted Falla’s familiar Seven Popular Spanish Songs. She also, wisely, added Dalila’s aria “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” just before intermission.

The addition was smart in several ways, mostly because it helped the listener forget the Victorian nonsense that had preceded it--Edward Elgar’s undistinguished and undistinctive “Sea Pictures,” five perfectly forgettable songs of a sentimental nature.

Yet the Elgar items, an opening set of two Handel arias, four hauntingly beautiful songs by the black American composer Henry Burleigh and a short group of Brahms songs showed Graves as vocally resourceful and unfailingly stylish, if sometimes--as in the Elgar cycle--genuinely hard to understand. She is a singer whose recital company is consistently enjoyable and who brings a full measure of sympathy and temperament to everything she sings.

Graves’ most potent interpretive moments came in an added Brahms group--which she substituted for three announced songs by Chausson--and in the wondrous Burleigh songs, practically unknown compositions from the famous arranger of spirituals.

At the end, Graves and her pianistic partner Warren Jones--a major musical collaborator, although he insists on dressing like Joe College--offered five encores, including three spirituals plus the Habanera from “Carmen” as well as a novelty song called “I’m Hungry.”