It was with great anticipation that I headed to Carnegie Hall in May 2001 for a recital by Olga Borodina.At the time, the Russian mezzo-soprano was fast becoming a fan favorite up the street at the Metropolitan Opera, and I expected a huge crowd for this glittering event. Upon arrival, however, I was greeted by a hastily scrawled slip of paper tacked up over the gigantic poster out front, announcing that the recital had been postponed a week. It was reported throughout that week that Ms. Borodina was suffering from allergies. A week later, I set out once again to savor the Olga experience. Unfortunately, Ms. Borodina was still encumbered by her condition and had to fight valiantly just to be heard.

Now a legitimate superstar, Ms.Borodina was back on Tuesday evening, accompanied by her husband, the bass Ildar Abdrazakov. Although I have heard her several times since that ill-fated event five years ago,this was my first return to Carnegie to experience her in a recital. This was decidedly an opera singer’s song presentation. The first half consisted of Russian romances, while the second part was made up of opera arias.

Ms. Borodina is a great singer – a great singer – and can navigate impressively through several songs, though she employs much operatic technique to do so. On this night, she chose a set featuring every member of the so-called “mighty handful. “This interesting grouping provided a welcome opportunity to hear Cesar Cui and Mily Balakirev, but the two songs done especially sensitively were by Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Of What I Dream in the Quiet Night” was vintage Borodina. Her voice is huge and extremely secure in its lower register. Her singing style is expansive. Her operatic training aids in the marvelous transition from dramatic pause to fully enunciated final note – not necessarily a high note but one treated like a burst of magma. This was not song-singing for purists, but it was thrilling for opera fans, as were the colorful dynamics and exotic modalities of Mussorgsky’s “The Night.”

Mr. Abdrazakov is less distinguished. His sweetly conversational voice lacks resonance, a fact magnified by his appearing on the same stage as Ms. Borodina (before the encores, they sang only one number together). His lower and higher tones are a bit limp, although he is adept at pitch control. It is clear that he would not be where he is today without his matrimonial connection. His set of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff was pleasant enough, although in the latter’s “Christ Is Risen” a certain false operatic emotion supplanted a more genuine human one.

There is an unspoken agreement in these sorts of recitals that the opera section will be better. Indeed, Mr. Abdrazakov sang more comfortably in “They Know the Truth” from Glinka’s “Ivan Susanin,” although he was frustratingly deadpan in “The Whole Camp Sleeps” from Rachmaninoff’s “Aleko.” His “Song of the Varangian Trader” from Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sadko” was rather characterless and exposed the underweight quality of Mr. Abdrazakov’s lower regions.

Ms. Borodina, however, sang magnificently. Her “Marfa’s Divination” from Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina” was extremely moving and heroic, her “Air des adieux” from Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans” otherworldly.

There is a trend in modern recitals to feature the pianist a little more than in the old days, but here Dmitri Yefimov kept himself tidily in the background. When he did have his moment in the sun, in Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade of Don Juan,” he made the most of it.

By far the best performance of the evening was Ms.Borodina’s rendition of Borodin’s “The Daylight Dies” from “Prince Igor.” She created an authentic Central Asian atmosphere for her magical singing that was dreamily infectious. You know the piece, or at least its spawn, as “A Stranger in Paradise.” I felt like I was there with her.