Christine Brewer at Alice Tully Hall At her Alice Tully Hall recital on Sunday afternoon - Mother's Day - the soprano Christine Brewer naturally performed "For the Color of My Mother," a song written for her in 2008 by Alan L. Smith. The text is a poem by Ms. Brewer's daughter, Elisabeth. Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Christine Brewer The soprano performed, supported by Craig Rutenberg on piano, during her recital on Sunday afternoon at Alice Tully Hall. It is a sensitive, cleareyed tribute but also a reminder that Ms. Brewer's talent as a mother arouses ambivalence in fans of her large, penetrating voice. After all, one of her explanations for drastically limiting her operatic engagements in the 1990s - arguably her vocal prime - was her desire to remain close to home in Illinois while Elisabeth was in school. Despite rave reviews and the perpetual drought of singers who can meet the demands of her specialties - Wagner and Strauss - Ms. Brewer's appearances in opera remain sporadic. She now concentrates mainly on orchestral concerts and recitals, which benefit from her easygoing presence and her disarming ability to scale down her big sound without sacrificing its grandeur. On Sunday, joined by the pianist Craig Rutenberg, she sang American songs with warmth, dignity and power. Her highest notes, silver bullets at their best, tend toward stridency, but in much of this repertory she was able to stay within her rich yet clear middle voice. Barber's sensuous "Sure on This Shining Night," from a set of five of his songs, came out as a flood of tone; a closing series of mid-20th-century standards featured a rendition of Arlen's "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" breathtaking in its balance of vocal freedom and control. In three Ives songs she captured wistful melancholy (his arrangement of the hymn "At the River") better than exuberance ("The Circus Band"); it was telling that in his two-part "Memories," "Rather Sad" was haunting while "Very Pleasant" was bland. Ms. Brewer brought loving care even to the less exalted offerings of Mr. Smith: not just "For the Color of My Mother" but also a pleasantly varied, well-made cycle of songs set to letters written home by a soldier in World War II. And Ms. Brewer generously gave the stage to Mr. Rutenberg, who played with delicacy and grace throughout the recital, for a series of Virgil Thomson's elegant solo piano portraits of friends and acquaintances. The portraits led into "My Long Life," the final aria from Thomson's opera "The Mother of Us All." Infused with the sound of American hymns but with a tender elegance all its own, it is one of the most astonishingly beautiful moments in opera. Ms. Brewer stopped time with it. During a particularly peaceful passage, a loud electronic noise from the audience caused her to restart the aria from the beginning. "We cannot retrace our steps," the opening line goes, but Ms. Brewer did. I almost wish the whole incident had happened again: I could listen to her sing it all day.