http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/arts/luca-pisaroni-in-concert-at-carnegie-hall.html 2014-10-22 23:56:32 Luca Pisaroni in Concert at Carnegie Hall The bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, known for Mozart operas, offered a concert of German lieder at Zankel Hall. === Leporello. Figaro. To many opera fans, those are the names synonymous with But Mr. Pisaroni is “allergic to stereotypes,” he told a German magazine last year. Last Thursday at There was much to admire in the evening-long program of songs by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert, especially Mr. Pisaroni’s rich, muscular timbre and smooth-flowing legato. In But Mr. Pisaroni was most convincing in songs that were dramatic rather than lyrical, and those were in relatively short supply. In selections like Mozart’s wistful “Abendempfindung” and Beethoven’s rapt “Lied aus der Ferne,” he appeared to content himself with creating shapely phrases and buffing his voice to an even sheen across the range, with little thought given to the sound, color and emotional resonance of individual words. It was only in the last lines of Mendelssohn’s “Reiselied,” the last song of the program’s first half, that Mr. Pisaroni finally unleashed the magnificence of his voice at full tilt. The song, an autumnal scene painted with a blustery, agitated piano part, ends with an oak tree mocking the love-struck traveler. It was interesting to observe how this brief instance of direct speech lit up Mr. Pisaroni’s performance. He was excellent in Schubert’s “Der Atlas,” set to a Heine text about the primordial Titan. Again, Mr. Pisaroni jumped at the chance to embody a specific character and made the song sound as if it had been tailored to his own voice. He offered an urgent and haunting account of Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” creating different voices for each of the ballad’s characters with the dramatic instinct that marks Mr. Pisaroni as an opera singer first and foremost.