TV REVIEW : A Look at the Vital Life, Art of Caballe

“A diva in full sail” is host Melvyn Bragg’s characterization of soprano Montserrat Caballe, subject of a “South Bank” show on Bravo cable tonight at 6:30.

The Spanish singer, who will be 61 in April, may not consistently live up to that description these days, but during this hourlong profile she does sing beautifully for a few minutes in a recent taped London performance of Rossini’s “Il Viaggio a Reims.”

The singing itself proves the most engaging feature of this presentation. In medium-length excerpts of operatic arias and duets and art-songs by Bellini, Richard Strauss, Mompou, Serrano and Turina (among others), the scope of Caballe’s gifts and achievement over a four-decade career is indicated and documented.

Particularly revelatory are a portion of “Casta diva,” from “Norma” (filmed in Orange, France, in 1974), the very end of “Salome” and the Spanish-Catalan songs, the last performed specifically for this show in a private recital in London, with pianist Manuel Burgueras. Caballe is also shown in rehearsal, and while teaching; she reminisces, for the camera, briefly, and later visits her ranch outside Barcelona. In a gimmicky, eerie, yet impressive closer to the show, she sings an aria from Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena” in the Tower of London.

Sprinkled through these glimpses of the diva’s life and career are testimonials from four of the soprano’s colleagues: tenors Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, the retired Dame Joan Sutherland and American soprano Cheryl Studer.

Their comments are full of praise for Caballe the artist, but also indicate her human side. Sutherland, for instance, tells about the time Caballe played hooky from opera rehearsals in Chicago to visit her husband, tenor Bernabe Marti, then appearing in “Norma” with Sutherland, in Philadelphia.

Also shown is the duet video Caballe made with her “new friend” (in 1987), the late rock singer Freddie Mercury.