SINGER'S PERFECT STORM SOPRANO DAWN UPSHAW'S SENSE OF ADVENTURE DRAWS HER TO 'EL NINO'.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

It's been some time since Schoenberg's scowling mien or Boulez's hard gaze represented the face of new music. The standard-bearers today have softer countenances, like John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Simon Rattle. Yet even they fall short of warm and fuzzy.

For that, one must go to Dawn Upshaw, the universally adored American soprano - beloved even to those generally unmoved by contemporary composition. For proof, consider the huge sales generated by a Nonesuch CD of Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3; she sang the haunting vocal part.

Upshaw doesn't sing only new works, but she has made such material a priority during the past decade. And if anything, she will concentrate on modern fare even more in the future.

``For me, it's important to feel like I'm in touch with my own world,'' she says by phone from her home near New York City. ``I want to be in the moment. It's wonderful to repeat music for the millionth time; great music does wonderful things for us. But it's vital for the continuation of music for us to perform music written today. I think I would get terribly bored if I just repeated the same things over and over.''

Upshaw's commitment can be gauged by her two appearances this season with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The first, in October, found her singing ``Ayre,'' a new folk-song cycle Osvaldo Golijov wrote for her. The second, happening today through Sunday, reunites her with John Adams' Nativity oratorio, ``El Nino,'' a work she helped premiere in 2000 and has subsequently sung several times, including at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2003.

The singer praises ``the grandness'' of Adams' score. ``The way these big gestures speak, they're so moving and intimate,'' she says. ``I love the huge, incredibly expressive leaps in his vocal writing. They never feel awkward or arbitrary,'' adding, ``it's a very special child that I almost feel I want to protect, though I don't know what from.''

This weekend's concerts will differ significantly from those in 2003, mostly because director Peter Sellars' staging and accompanying film have been jettisoned. Upshaw insists she'll miss them. ``I prefer the work in some sort of staged version, but I think the piece speaks for itself no matter how it's done,'' she says.

Once a regular in the opera house - she began singing bit parts at New York's Metropolitan Opera in the mid-1980s and achieved leading-role status there by the early 1990s - Upshaw today is far better-known as a recitalist and concert singer.

She possesses one of the most easily identifiable voices of our time, her sound clear, penetrating and inviting. Her art is invariably straightforward, and her cheery persona puts her in the company of such charismatic performers as mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, with whom she shares the common touch.

When Upshaw makes time for opera now, it's generally for new works, like Golijov's chamber opera ``Ainadamar'' and Kaija Saariaho's much-lauded ``L'Amour de Loin.'' In both pieces, as well as other projects, she has been directed by Sellars, to whom she swears uncommon fealty.

``Peter's movements are always so musical and infuse my singing with kind of a beauty,'' she says. ``It just sort of loosens the whole thing up for me. I used to wonder how singing something demanding while lying down or bending could actually free the whole mechanism, but it does. It's scary sometimes when you first work with Peter to trust that, but it's been true for me. Every time I work with him, it is truly life changing.''

In addition to Adams and Golijov, the soprano has enjoyed a fruitful association with John Harbison, who wrote the role of Daisy Buchanan in his opera ``The Great Gatsby'' for her. In February, the pair reunites for the premiere of ``Milosz Songs,'' which Harbison composed for Upshaw and the New York Philharmonic. The texts are English versions of 11 poems by Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish Nobel laureate who died last year.

``She's an exceptional musician,'' says Harbison of Upshaw. ``And I mean as a colleague-musician, not just strictly a singer. Dawn is widely knowledgeable about literature and music. That kind of richness takes a long time to accumulate.''

Harbison describes his relationship with Upshaw as built on mutual surprise. ``A productive relationship is about comfort and discomfort,'' he explains. ``So I always try to make sure that my music has some elements she may not have expected, and her manner of singing may also have evolved, so I can be surprised, too.''

One surprise music lovers are unlikely to face is Upshaw abandoning her long-standing commitment to contemporary music. At the moment, she insists that she has plenty to keep her busy. And there are always new composers to discover. ``I would like to get to know the music of Thomas Ades better,'' she says of the groundbreaking young English composer scheduled for a Philharmonic residency in February.

What may startle admirers, though, is that she has already begun retiring certain recently composed works. ``I don't think I'll ever sing Messiaen's opera 'Saint Francis' again,'' she says by way of example. ``But there's enough to do out there that I'm still happily looking for new experiences.''

Her many fans are counting on it.

DAWN UPSHAW IN 'EL NINO'

What: The beloved American soprano joins bass-baritone Willard White and mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung in John Adams' ``El Nino,'' with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Los Angeles Children's Chorus.

Where: Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 11 a.m. today, 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: Tickets: $15 to $125. [phone]. www.laphil.com.

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no caption (Dawn Upshaw)