1991Year Can anyone explain why "Der Freischutz" has a history, at least in modern times, of firing blanks in New York? Carl Maria von Weber's melodrama, a landmark of German Romanticism, last appeared on a major stage here nearly a decade ago in a New York City Opera offering. A decade earlier, the Metropolitan Opera had tried for a revival, but shot itself in the foot with a lamentable production by Rudolf Heinrich. Weber's opera about a marksman who makes a pact with the devil to win a shooting contest and, thereby, a bride is no more quaint than "Faust" or, looked at sternly, the "Ring." It would seem to have all the ingredients to insure continuous popularity: an endlessly melodious score whose tunes are familiar from appearing in one of the symphonic repertory's most famous overtures

1988Year LEAD: Dominique Labelle, who was presented Monday evening at Merkin Concert Hall as winner of the Canadian Women's Club vocal contest, has a beautiful lyric soprano voice and a sympathy for song. On the evidence of her Rossini, Schumann, Barber and Debussy here, she is not yet a fully formed artist, but she is a singer to watch. Review/Recital

1989Year LEAD: The Italian soprano Katia Ricciarelli quit La Scala opera house today after having been being booed in her first performance there in four years. Reviews/Music

1942Year 5 pianists plan sonata programs, Phila CONCERT AND OPERA

1988Year LEAD: Since her New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series in 1981, Marvis Martin has gone from success to success, amassing awards, medals and glowing reviews as a song recitalist, concert singer and opera performer. On Tuesday evening the Florida-born soprano took another step up the career ladder when she appeared at Alice Tully Hall under the auspices of the same invaluable organization as recipient of its Michaels Award. Review/Recital

1991Year Roberta Alexander does not possess the most lustrous of sopranos, but she remains one of our most appealing artists, in opera but especially in song and double-especially in American song. On Friday night at Weill Recital Hall, an intimate space that boxed in her voice and turned it edgier than usual, she still managed to triumph in the Barber and Ives material after the intermission. Not that the first half, devoted to Dvorak's "Zigeunermelodien" (Op. 55), in German, and Debussy's "Ariettes Oubliees," was negligible. Miss Alexander sang them warmly and surely, but without the reserves of warmth, humor and all-round idiomatic assurance she brings to American composers. Reviews/Music