Music -- City Hall, Saturday, June 18.

*** There was an air of expectancy in City Hall on Saturday evening as the packed audience awaited soprano Marcelle Clamens' first recital in two years. We were not disappointed.

As the climactic, high notes of `Summertime' from Gershwin's `Porgy and Bess' hovered still in the air, the audience rose to its feet for this third and final encore. It was the second ovation of the evening, for Ms Clamens had already received a rapturous reception at the close of the printed programme.

For once, this form of tribute, which Bermuda is in danger of trivialising through chronic over-use, was richly deserved.

This concert, performed by this gifted singer after two years of intensive study at the famed Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, was something of a half-way assessment of a voice in the making. And what a voice. The sheer power and purity of her upper range -- the kind of singing that brings a shiver to the spine -- is possibly more magical than ever; the vocal line is revealed in all its glory as she begins to master the technicalities of breathing and phrasing. Perhaps the most noticeable sign of improvement was in her diction: she was handling French and German songs with apparent dexterity.

Handel's exquisite, but ferociously difficult `Oh! Had I Jubal's Lyre', which opened the programme, revealed a certain, understandable nervousness. By the second song, however, she was in her stride, and by the time she tackled the immortal Mozart's `L'Amero, Saro Constante', she was in full lyrical flight.

And so she progressed, through a notoriously difficult repertoire that ranged from Faure's humorous little `Mandoline', the sonorous beauty of his dramatic `Fleur Jetee', on to the wistfully high melancholy of Schumann's `Stille Tranen' and finally, the soulful longing of American spirituals. This programme also, incidentally, confirmed that Marcelle Clamens has a prodigious memory.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this singer's talent is her stage personality. Though seemingly heaven-sent to sing opera, she possesses that rare ability to hold her audience throughout an evening of straight recital.

Her enormously expressive eyes are sad, rueful, and playful by turn and few could fail to be affected by that radiant smile that seems directed at each individual in the audience. In other words, she is naturally charismatic, for she has not yet commenced performance classes at university.

For many in the audience her traditional American spirituals were the high point of the evening, imbued as they were with a sad and gentle tenderness.

Her first encore was the gorgeously reflective aria, `Porgi Amor' from Mozart's `The Marriage of Figaro', where the Countess mourns the fading of her husband's love. Changing to a mood of merriment, she then sang the delightful Italian Street Song from `Naughty Marietta' and, of course, closed with what is becoming her piece de resistance , the haunting solo from that great American opera, `Porgy and Bess'.

She was impeccably and sensitively accompanied on the piano by Donna Loewy, a highly accomplished professor of music at the Conservatory: it is surely a measure of her faith in her pupil that she undertook this task.

Marcelle Clamens has received encouragement and financial help from a broad spectrum of the community. This marvellously exciting recital provided a brilliant affirmation -- if any is needed -- that here is an artist, not only blessed with a truly awesome talent, but the intelligence and tenacity to conquer the academic discipline almost automatically required in today's cut-throat international music world. For this quality alone, she is just about the best role model our Island's youth could ever hope to find. Indeed, for some of us, she is already a national treasure.

PATRICIA CALNAN.