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Mylène Farmer's fifth live album to date, No.5 on Tour, documents her 2009 tour of France in support of her most recent studio album, Point de Suture (2008). The standard edition of album includes 20 songs spread across two discs, including a bunch of her greatest hits performed in the electro-rock style of Point de Suture. Though some of these songs are also included on her previous live albums, most recently Avant Que l'Ombre...A Bercy (2006), N°5 on Tour stands apart from its in-concert predecessors on account of its new arrangements, abundance of new material, and recording quality so pristine that it sounds as though the album were recorded in a studio with overdubbed interjections of audience noise and stage banter. Known as a dazzling concert performer with a flair for provocation, Farmer performed more or less the exact same set list for much of her tour. N°5 on Tour follows the standard set list, which is broken up into several different acts. The album opens with "D'Entre les Morts," an instrumental studio recording, before the in-concert material commences with "Paradis Inanimé," one of seven songs from Point de Suture. Farmer balances the new material with a bunch of greatest hits, including "L'Âme-Stram-Gram" (1999), "XXL" (1995), "À Quoi Je Sers..." (1989), "Pourvu Qu'Elles Soient Douces" (1988), "Rêver" (1995), "Ainsi Soit Je..." (1988), "Libertine" (1986), "Sans Contrefaçon" (1987), "Je Te Rends Ton Amour" (1999), and "Désenchantée" (1991). The newly arranged songs from the '80s are all highlights. Several of the Point de Suture songs are also highlights, in particular "Je M'Ennuie," "Dégénération," "C'est dans l'Air," and "Si J'Avais au Moins...," the latter two of which close the album on a high note. The pristine sound quality of N°5 on Tour is also notable. The audience noise can be heard only between songs, and the vocals and music are so perfect, it begs the question of how much editing was done in the studio. The integrity question aside, No.5 on Tour is far and away the best-sounding of Farmer's live albums to date. Longtime fans might wish that the set list wasn't weighted so heavily toward Point de Suture, and they also might find themselves recoiling from the new arrangements. As a representative document of Farmer's 2009 tour, however, N°5 on Tour could hardly be better. The collector's edition adds a three-track DVD of trivial value.© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo

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No doubt a companion piece to 1999's All the Way: A Decade of Song, On Ne Change Pas is a two-disc compendium of the other, mildly overlooked phase of Celine Dion's career: her performances sung entirely in her native tongue of Québecois French. While she soared up charts all over the globe with her hits sung in English, she also amassed quite a back catalog of hits ranging from dance-pop-friendly numbers to her familiar ground of passionate, melodramatic ballads. For those unfamiliar with this portion of her career (or for those who don't speak French), getting past the roadblock of not being able to understand the subject material will lead to a greater, more holistic appreciation of the depth and prolific output of her career in such a short span. At two discs, it's also a bit much Dion for anyone to swallow in one sitting, but on the plus side there are also a few new tracks, including her duet with Il Divo, "I Believe in You."© Rob Theakston /TiVo

Chief conductor of Les Siècles symphony orchestra, François-Xavier Roth has been revisiting French music from the beginning of the 20th century for several years now, taking care to honour both the original instruments and to find melodies that favour even greater clarity of timbre and attack. After his incredible recordings of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky’s first work (special mention to the superb complete version of L’Oiseau de feu), everyone naturally expected the conductor to perform Pelléas et Mélisande, the opera he conducted at the very beginning of his career which is particularly close to his heart.This new version of Debussy’s masterpiece was recorded on the 20th and 21st of March 2021 at the Opéra de Lille. As one might expect, the orchestra, which is present throughout the score (it conveys emotion and feeling in the style of Wagner and Mussorgsky) is given pride of place by François-Xavier Roth, who transforms this strange opera into some sort of secular oratorio.As for the singers, it’s a real treat to hear French voices in the two main roles. Vannina Santoni’s portrayal of Mélisande is refreshing, and she makes the character less naïve than previous interpretations have done. She asserts herself in the forest scene at the beginning of the piece and later, in the final scene, she confidently declares to Pelléas "I only lie to your brother!". Pelléas is personified by a tenor voice and not by a light baritone as intended by Debussy (in fact, he sounds much like Eric Tappy in Armin Jordan’s beautiful version of Erato). Thanks to Julien Behr’s stellar performance, the character comes across as fragile and overwhelmed by his ill-fated destiny. Alexandre Duhamel’s touching portrayal of Golaud reveals a gritty character who is undeniably relatable, despite being consumed by an ardent jealousy that ultimately causes him to murder his younger brother and, indirectly, Mélisande. Jean Teitgen is a less dogmatic Arkel than usual. Literally and figuratively blind, it’s as though he has no understanding of what’s happening within the castle and is unable to escape the confines of his own, outdated idealism. Marie-Ange Todorovitch does a good job playing the difficult and often overlooked role of Geneviève, whose appearances, though infrequent, are pivotal.Finally, it should be noted that François-Xavier Roth uses the definitive and complete version of the opera, which includes the few bars that fell victim to censorship in 1902. As such, viewers can rediscover the confronting dialogue between Golaud and his son Yniold, whom he uses to spy on Mélisande when she’s in her bedroom. “What about the bed? Are they close to the bed?” asks Golaud in the height of his jealousy. Thanks to its poetic dimension and fantastic cast, this new version easily rivals those by Désormière, Inghelbrecht, Ansermet, Armin Jordan, Karajan and Abbado. © François Hudry/Qobuz

This disc is part of a superb series from France's Alpha label, mostly covering early Baroque repertory, that offers handsome packaging bearing an artwork contemporary with the music on the disc, shown both complete and in detail. The painting of Bacchus and Ariadne shown here is attributed to Louis Le Nain, one of those artists you may have sprinted past in the Louvre on your way to see the Mona Lisa. After reading the informative essay here, however, you'll take more time in that gallery on your next visit. The music on the disc, as with many recordings in this series, is even less well known; the composer of most of it, Antoine Boësset (1587-1643), is not even mentioned in music history texts. He was a composer of airs de cour, court airs, for Louis XIII, and that entire genre will be new to most non-French listeners. On the evidence here, it's a treasure trove. Boësset's pieces are songs for a solo voice or a small group, accompanied by viols and lutes. They are lightly polyphonic at most, and they show the influence of Italian opera -- but it is only an accent, not the meat of the music. A few pieces are in Italian and a few in Spanish, another fashion of the day. The texts are mostly little pastoral scenes or odes to feminine beauty, aimed at exquisite exploration of a specific affect rather than at dramatic impact. There are also texted interludes from the ballet de cour and works from Boësset's contemporaries that fill out the picture of his place and time. One sacred song, Ô Dieu, is included and placed near the end, seemingly as a check on all the frivolity; it is especially lovely, as is the title track of the album, Je meurs sans mourir (I die without dying). There are also some instrumental interludes from dramatic works. The music is graceful, natural, and sensuous in the extreme.The French ensemble Le Poème Harmonique gives gentle, highly evocative performances of these works, but the real highlight, perhaps, is the booklet, which weighs in at 56 pages (half English, half French). Along with the essay on Le Nain's painting is a complete introduction to Boësset and his world. It may be tough going for the casual reader, and it takes some work to find the commentary pertaining to a specific piece if you're just thumbing through, but it offers deep context for this music and brings it fully alive even though it's completely unfamiliar. The only complaints are that, for all the care obviously lavished on the booklet, two of the pieces, numbers 14 and 15, are reversed in the track listing from how they actually appear on disc (the ordering in the track listing would have been better), and that in one of the excerpts from stage works, track 11, the group makes a questionable decision to interpolate part of another work that doesn't really fit. This album is strongly recommended for lovers of the French Baroque, and indeed for anyone who has walked slowly through the Louvre and wondered about the culture of Louis XIII and his era. You could take a course at your local university, or you could just fork over the cost of this one CD.© TiVo

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Henri Salvador was born in 1917 in Cayenne, French Guiana. He studied music in Paris and played with Django Reinhardt on one occasion. He started playing guitar seriously in Paris in 1935. His stay in the interior of Brazil is evident in much of his music. His sound is a combination of Parisian cabaret, Brazilian bossa nova, and French Antillean influences. This particular album shows his range of influences very well. His unguent vocals infuse an ambience of sensuous silk and soft tropical breezes. He also displays his great sense of humor in his lyrics, for which he is renowned in France and his homeland. "Jardin d'Hiver" tells of all the images he would like to have inhabit his winter garden. It is a touching portrait and sung very soulfully. The instrumental accompaniment throughout the album is very much muted but exceptional in its evocation of the ambience that his voice creates. The duet with Françoise Hardy on "Le Fou de la Reine" is a fine example of the finesse of both artists. The album won the Victoire de la Musique award in France for the year 2000. A highly recommended introduction to this prolific artist. [This album was re-released under the title Room with a View in early 2002 on the Blue Note label, including a bonus track.]© Mark Romano /TiVo

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