May 12, 2001 MUSIC REVIEW Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Vulnerable, but With Force By ANNE MIDGETTE / NYTimes Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is a singing artist, a rare breed. She not only sings beautifully but her luminous interpretations truly communicate as well, without contrivance. An upper note in a mother's lament, "Vieni, o figlio" from Handel's "Ottone," demonstrates absolute, quiet vulnerability. In Schumann's "Ich kann's nicht fassen" from the cycle "Frauenlieben und-leben," a similar climax rings out resoundingly with glowing force. At her recital on Sunday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall, even this oft-visited cycle took on real significance. The program's dramaturgy was also carefully thought out. Each of the three groupings - two Handel arias, three songs and an aria from the opera "Ashoka's Dream" by the mezzo-soprano's husband, Peter Lieberson, and finally the Schumann - presented a contrast between romantic love and maternal love. After the Schumann cycle's culmination in death, all three encores stayed on concept. Mr. Lieberson's Rilke songs, three of a cycle of five written for his wife, were a highlight. Although the poetry is not conventionally romantic, they certainly sound like love songs, not least because Ms. Hunt Lieberson's voice opened up in a new richness of warmth and color from the first notes of "O ihr Zartlichen." She is a born lieder singer, and Mr. Lieberson has created some contemporary German lieder. Respecting the words' profundity, intricacy and natural rhythm, his music here is also tinged with a German Romantic tonality, shades of Strauss and Wagner, particularly in the opening invocation of "Atmen, du unsichtbares Gedicht!" and its concluding fourths. Judith Gordon, the accompanist, played with a lissome touch: sometimes slightly cloying, more often gently supple. Janos Gereben/SF, CA [log in to unmask]