Rameau: Triste séjour – Argie

Soprano Véronique Gens, one of the leading French singers of today, presents an imaginatively programmed sequel to her award-winning 2006 recital of tragic operatic heroines.

This second album of Tragédiennes features arias and ballet music from the 18th and 19th centuries, from the Baroque (Rameau) to the Romantic (Berlioz) by way of such important transitional figures as Gluck – a composer whose heroine figure prominently in Gens’ schedule in 2010, with Alceste in Aix-en-Provence, Iphigénie en Aulide in Brussels and Iphigénie en Tauride in Vienna – Cherubini, and lesser-known figures such as Piccini, Sacchini and Arriaga, the ‘Spanish Mozart’, who died at the age of just 19.

Reviewing the first Tragédiennes, Opera magazine described Gens as “a soprano moulded by the best performance traditions of the French Baroque rediscovery of recent decades, but also one capable — as she has proved live and on record — of compassing Mozart and Berlioz in her repertory. Gens’s liquid-toned soprano … [with its] evenness of vocal production and command of line and tone ... is the programme’s binding and focal point, and always balm to the ears.”

Opera went on to say that “[the programme] shows off Gens’s sophisticated mastery of recitative declamation and aria-shaping and her considerable command of the various necessary vocal styles and manners, while at the same time blending historical nous, musical novelty, vocal attraction and dramatic liveliness in a manner rarely encountered today. The project was obviously carefully conceived and prepared; hard indeed to imagine it without Rousset and his splendid orchestra, who interleave the vocal items with some well-chosen instrumental items from the works in question … it’s a CD worth acquiring by anyone with the smallest interest in the singer, the period and the genres on display.”

As Gramophone said of the first album: “Gens's great gift is in differentiating between the various tragic heroines and bringing total dramatic commitment to each. There's anger spat out at white heat but there's also quiet, brooding hysteria – all characterised to perfection. And in Christophe Rousset and his Talens Lyriques she has partners on a truly exalted plane of imagination, musicality and sheer theatrical flair.”

Following the enormous success of the album OPERA 2009, EMI Classics is releasing OPERA 2010. Great voices of today and legendary singers of the past, from the EMI and Virgin Classics catalogue: the home of opera.

With 40 tracks, and over 2½ hours of operatic arias and duets, this double album features the best and most popular names in opera from the catalogues of both Virgin Classics and EMI Classics, ranging from the newest arrivals on the operatic scene, as well as many present day superstars, to iconic legends. This is an unmissable collection of the best in opera that will have a wide appeal.

Present day superstars include Angela Gheorghiu, Natalie Dessay, Sarah Brightman, Barbara Hendricks, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Jessye Norman, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Rolando Villazón, Roberto Alagna and Bryn Terfel.

Rising new artists are strongly represented by Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Elina Garanca, Vivica Genaux, Véronique Gens, Patrizia Ciofi, Philippe Jaroussky, Jonas Kaufmann, David Daniels, Max Emanuel Cencic and Laurent Naouri.

The programme also contains tracks by some of the world’s greatest singers of the past such as Victoria de los Angeles, Teresa Berganza, Mirella Freni, Lucia Popp and Franco Corelli as well as the legendary Luciano Pavarotti and the unique Maria Callas.

All the most popular operatic composers are represented, from Baroque masters like Vivaldi, Rameau and Handel, through Gluck and Mozart to Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Mascagni, Cilea and Gershwin, as well as French favourites Gounod, Massenet and Offenbach.