Act II became one ensemble success after another, peaking with the famous, and here beautifully calibrated, quintet.

As Tora chips away at the woman's stoniness, needling and supplicating, Ms. Bjork relents by beautifully calibrated degrees.

"The door is so beautifully calibrated that you only have to push it gently, and because of its weight it moves very slowly," Mr. Riehm said.

Visually, dramatically, atmospherically and psychologically, it's beautifully calibrated and it gets under your skin one encounter at a time, right along with the protagonist played by Gary Bond.

It's beautifully calibrated to appeal to the only viewers of any value to advertisers: young people.

It's a familiar American story of sacrifice, to be sure, embellished by marvelous renditions of Negro spirituals and a beautifully calibrated central performance by Heather Gillespie.

Ms. Kozena inhabited the cycle's character completely, giving her readings a childlike quality, beautifully calibrated to convey the range between innocence and devilishness.

Her performance in the third and fourth acts, when she balances fatalism and impetuousness, is beautifully calibrated.

Mr. Denman delivers Slim's monologue about his marriage with a sense of confusion and sorrow that is beautifully calibrated.

Even so, when he sang a mixed program at Alice Tully Hall in 1999, it was his beautifully calibrated Schubert performances that made the strongest impression.