Berlioz: Ah! Je vais mourir (from Les Troyens) (Death of Didon)

In her third ‘Tragédiennes’ album for Virgin Classics, French soprano Véronique Gens continues her exploration of the highways and byways of the French operatic repertoire, this time covering the late 18th and 19th centuries and with a prime focus on roles for the deeper, darker-toned female voice.

The French soprano Véronique Gens, joined once again by Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, continues her exploration of the highways and byways of the French operatic repertoire with this, her third ‘Tragédiennes’ album. It covers the late 18th and 19th centuries and travels from Carthage and Palestine to the Pyrenees, Tudor England and 16th century Germany, and alongside such names as Gluck, Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Verdi (his Don Carlos, written in French for Paris), Saint-Saëns (his rarely heard Henri VIII rather than Samson et Dalila) and Massenet, features composers who no longer hold a place on the world’s operatic stages: Gossec, Méhul (much admired by Berlioz), Mermet and Kreutzer (the violinist and dedicatee of Beethoven’s sonata).

Perhaps surprisingly, Gens’ main emphasis in this recital is on arias written for mezzo soprano, but there have always been darker shades in Gens’ timbre and French composers of opera created some of their most impressive roles and arias for the deeper-toned female voice. In fact, this recital makes explicit tribute to a series of Parisian divas would today probably be classified as mezzo sopranos: Marie-Thérèse Maillard, Cornélie Falcon (who gave her name to a particular sub-category of voice – a high mezzo/deep soprano), Rosina Stoltz and Pauline Viardot. Even Marie-Constance Sass, the first singer of the magnificent soprano aria ‘Toi qui sus le néant’ from Verdi’s Don Carlos – better known in its Italian version, ‘Tu che la vanità’ and now often sung by lyric sopranos – was also the creator of the sultry ‘falcon’ role of Sélika in Meyerbeer’s l’Africaine.

That Gens can hold her own in such exalted historic company becomes clear from the BBC Music Magazine‘s assessment of her last ‘Tragédiennes’ album: “Passion, ardour, rage, tenderness – the full gamut of human expression emerges in this selection of works created for French operatic femmes fatales … Music director Christophe Rousset and soprano Véronique Gens’s second disc of musical ‘Tragediénnes’ is a thrilling mix of the familiar … and the little known … The whole makes a wonderful odyssey … Gens’s agile voice is the perfect vehicle to cope with these emotional extremes, from the enchanting to the chilling. She is never afraid to sacrifice pure beauty of sound in favour of rhetorical and dramatic effect, giving due weight to the plights, laments and plangent outpourings of these timeless, tragic heroines. Rousset coaxes some crack playing from Les Talens Lyriques, combining the immediacy and intimacy of chamber music with all the colours and intensity of a large-scale symphony orchestra.”

In 2000 the contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux became the first Canadian to win the First Prize as well as the Special Prize for Lieder at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium. She has recorded for numerous labels, and now enjoys an exclusive contract with the Naïve label, for which she has recorded the title roles in Vivaldi’s operas Griselda and Orlando furioso. Her first recital CD of French mélodies (L’Heure exquise) was much praised by the critics. In 2008 Naïve released a recording of Vivaldi sacred works in which she sings the famous Stabat Mater. This was followed by the same composer’s La fida ninfa. In 2009 Naïve released a recital of Schumann songs with the pianist Daniel Blumenthal and a programme of Vivaldi arias with the Ensemble Matheus under Jean-Christophe Spinosi.

The programme chosen for this recording by Marie-Nicole Lemieux is dedicated to the finest arias from the French opera, recorded with one of the finest orchestras in this repertoire and featuring both popular and more specialised works by, amongst others, Massenet, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, and Bizet.