It was the first time either had come to hear the orchestra, and after a searing performance of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, they left impressed.

But the buzz of this meet has been the searing performances of Jones, one of the country's most versatile and resourceful athletes.

Tonight, in "Honor," Stephen Lang gives a searing performance as a homeless man living in an almost constant state of rage.

But she tore up the house with her searing performance of Eboli's great aria of anguished regret, "O Don Fatale."

After years of searing performances in supporting roles, he is starring in two films, "Hero" and "Jennifer 8," that recently opened within weeks of each other.

"Flic Story" is redeemed by a searing performance by the mercurial Jean-Louis Trintingnant, as an escaped killer on the run in postwar France.

John J. O'Connor of The New York Times gave a favorable review and praised the leads for their "searing" performances.

At Glyndebourne in 1996 Peter Sellars got some searing performances.

That same gray month was also warmed - heated, really - by Klaus Tennstedt's searing performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It is a searing performance, one that not even the pyrotechnics of the encores can erase from memory, and one that earns a standing ovation.