| Her subjects may revolve around love, loss, and guilt but poignancy rarely tips over into plangency. |
| Ben Johnson's performance as Alfredo is heroic, transcending his impossible character and delivering his arias with heart-rending plangency. |
| He rarely indulges in plangency and is as sparing with his emotional effects as he is generous with his melodic and rhythmic effects. |
| His Orestes is a confused, grandstanding jock, intoning his lines with stentorian plangency. |
