A MUSICAL HIGHLIGHT OF "The Prince of Egypt" comes from Israeli pop diva Ofra Haza, who provided the voice and was the model for Moses' mother, Yocheved. The Yemenite-Israeli vocalist with the ululating Arabesque trills is a World Music superstar, with mass followings in Europe as well as parts of the Arab world and critical acclaim in North America.

Having held off on the usual product licensing with "Prince," DreamWorks is playing the music card for all it's worth, with not just the standard soundtrack album but also two other CDs of music "inspired" by the movie: an "inspirational," featuring a number of gospel artists, and "Prince of Egypt - Nashville," with songs by such well-known country performers as Alison Krauss and Wynonna.

Haza's performance proved so spectacular, according to lyricist/composer Stephen Schwartz, that she was ultimately asked to record her three numbers for soundtracks in 19 different languages.

"She has 5,000 years of history in her voice," Schwartz told The Report, "and you can't replicate that in other languages with a sound-alike."

Co-composer Hans Zimmer wanted Haza from the start, but his colleagues felt that they'd be better off with a Broadway singer. Then she auditioned, and there was no more talk of raiding Broadway.

In a telephone interview with The Report from her home in Herzliyah, Haza said she had been overwhelmed by the "honor" and the "huge compliment" of being asked to perform in "a Spielberg production," and "electrified," moreover, by the prospect of actually singing some of her lines in Hebrew.

Hebrew, in fact, appears in two numbers. The first, "Deliver Us," is the film's rousing set-piece, establishing the bitter servitude of the Hebrews, the imperial mastery of the Egyptians, and the heart-wrenching predicament of a mother forced to set her baby adrift in a river. "I knew I wanted to focus on the mother and her experience," says Schwartz. "When she was singing to her baby, I wanted her to feel this was something happening, really, at this moment, that this was a real woman with a real human dilemma. And I wanted her to start out in a language that felt more authentically her own. We understand the emotion if not the words."

Haza told The Report that at first, before the sequence was animated, Schwartz and Zimmer tried to focus her feelings by giving her a doll to hold and serenade. "The doll did the job," Haza said. "I forgot it was a doll, and I felt I was sending a baby into the water." Later, while recording the foreign-language versions in London, Haza, who said she has been trying to conceive since marrying last year, recalled that she cried while looking at her animated alter ego cradling the baby.

"My God, what a ziskeleh," she said, "what a sweet little thing."

S.T.