`BARTOLI': DIVA-WORSHIP AT HIGH PITCH OF SILLINESS : ``CECILIA BARTOLI: THE PASSION OF SONG''.

Byline: Richard Dyer Boston Globe

The new book about Cecilia Bartoli provides a definitive answer to a question no one would have thought to ask before: Can women be opera queens?

The answer is a resounding yes. ``Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song,'' by Kim Chernin with Renate Stendhal, is a work of diva-worship brought to the highest pitch of silliness, far surpassing such other classics of the genre as ``The Rainbow Bridge'' (1954), the unconsciously Sapphic ode to the art of the legendary Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad by her secretary Mary Watkins Cushing.

The only reason to write a book about Bartoli now is that she is famous and her name will sell the book. The Italian mezzo-soprano has become the most popular classical singer to emerge since Luciano Pavarotti. At one time, five Bartoli CDs simultaneously appeared on the top-10 charts, and tickets for her Symphony Hall recent recital have been sold out since last summer. Nevertheless, Bartoli is just past 30, and her career has lasted slightly more than a decade. She has accomplished a lot professionally, and one hopes she has found time and circumstances to create and enjoy a personal life as well, but it is far too early to attempt any account of her life or assessment of her career - so far, that's a job for a souvenir program.

The prose of Chernin and Stendhal is too overheated even for that glossy context; it is written, as Chernin admits, ``in a pitch of high ecstasy'' in an attempt ``to approximate the rapturous quality of the singer's voice.'' The result is absurd. ``Friends could grasp the essence of the singer if they were able to imagine a sensuous, embodied angel, standing quietly on a concert stage as she reported back to God about the mysterious joys and sorrows of human existence.'' This leads to high comedy when Chernin comes into conversation with the earthy singer. ``I keep hearing something sacred in the way you sing,'' Chernin says to Bartoli. ``That is what I am so drawn to in your voice. But am I right? Do you have the sense of carrying a sacred message?''

`` `If I have this sacred ... ?' (Bartoli) hesitates, then repeats the word as if she had never before thought to apply it to herself. `This sacred ... ? I don't know. I love this music. I really feel this music. I love to sing. I like Pasiello, Scarlatti, Vivaldi...' ''

Chernin, a therapist and author of books on hunger and ``Eros and memory,'' is responsible for the first part of the book, an account of Bartoli's appearances in Berkeley, and of Chernin's responses to them, together with some interview material and a description of master classes taught by Bartoli and her mother in Braunschweig, Germany. Stendahl assembled a ``Performance Guide'' at the end that turns up evidence of early performances by the mezzo hitherto unknown to most of her admirers; those leads one day will be useful to chroniclers of her career. It is also useful to be reminded, by Chernin, that discussion of Bartoli's development from a slip of a girl into a full-figured woman has been a preoccupation of male writers - though her own descriptions of the singer are no less irrelevant and embarrassing: ``She carries her ample bosom as a veritable cornucopia, the skin of her chest, neck and arms, with its mother-of-pearl shimmer, an entirely adequate substitute for jewelry.''

But it is hard to secure a footing of basic biographical information in the slippery slush and gush of the writing; nowhere does even Bartoli's date of birth appear, and touchy subjects like the mezzo-soprano's relationship to a feckless father are not pursued.

Some dimensions of singing and our response to it are emotional and spiritual; some of them are factual. Chernin doesn't seem interested in the factual at all. One will read in vain for information about Bartoli's documented range or for any informed analysis of her controversial and unconventional technique - the facial contortions, the occluded vowels. We are told that some critics say ``She aspirates her coloratura''; the response comes from her record producer: ``No, she doesn't.''

(One of Boston's leading singers and voice teachers had this to say at the intermission of Bartoli's debut recital in 1992: Drawing her fur about her, as she prepared for her early departure, this authoritative figure said, ``I'm going home to watch the women skate on television. Those girls have to know what they're doing, or they'll land on their behinds.'')

The mezzo's record producer and manager, along with opera house managers, are quoted without question; outsiders, such as critics, are quoted to confirm Chernin's own impressions, or lined up for dismissal. The writers apparently did not seek out views of colleagues, including other singers, conductors, or Bartoli's collaborative pianists - or, for that matter, her rivals. Marilyn Horne's dismissive remarks about Bartoli are not mentioned.

``Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song'' represents the notes of fans. Inevitably they tell us more about the fans than they tell us about Bartoli, and it's hard to stay as interested in what the writers do. After all, they can't sing.

Title: ``Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song''

Author: Kim Chernin with Renate Stendhal

Data: 232 pages, HarperCollins, illustrated; $25

Our rating: Two stars

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Photo: ``Cecilia Bartoli: The Passion of Song'' represents the notes of fans, which tell us more about the fans than they tell us about Bartoli.