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Offenbach: La Princesse de Trébizonde

Paul Daniel

Opera - Released September 22, 2023 | Opera Rara

Hi-Res Distinctions Gramophone: Recording of the Month
The Opera Rara label and company, true to their name, resurrect forgotten operas. There is an abundance of those in the output of Jacques Offenbach, who wrote some 100 operettas and opéras bouffes, few of which are remembered today. Opera Rara made a good pick with La Princesse de Trébizonde (1869), and this release made classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023. Offenbach is as full of good, Arthur Sullivan-like tunes as ever, and he even discarded a number of them from the operetta's original production in Baden-Baden in the process of preparing a new version for Paris. Those discarded pieces are included here, and there could hardly be a better testimony to Offenbach's melodic fecundity. Better still is the action, taking place in a carnival sideshow and suggesting all kinds of ideas for a production set in modern times. It is gloriously preposterous even by operetta standards. A girl, Zanetta, accidentally breaks the nose off a wax figure of the Princess of Trébizonde and agrees to stand in for the figure herself. A prince (a pants role) -- who has dropped a lottery ticket into the till in lieu of paying admission -- falls in love with the "Princess." Meanwhile, the lottery ticket, with a castle as the prize, comes up a winner and overturns the relationships between rich and poor. The comic scenes thus spawned are handled with the needed high spirits by the cast and the several choruses (executed by Opera Rara's remarkable house chorus), and conductor Paul Daniel is ideal in this genre, consistently pushing the tempo just slightly in order to bring the forward momentum. This recording is based on a 2022 London production but is a "cast recording," not a live one, and it is quite clear sonically. La Princesse de Trébizonde has been recorded only twice before, once in Russian (!) and once for French radio in 1966; this sprightly performance is much needed.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Bijoux perdus

Jodie Devos

Classical - Released September 16, 2022 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
After her triumph with the album "Offenbach Colorature", Jodie Devos has chosen to follow in the footsteps of one of her compatriots, the Belgian coloratura soprano Marie Cabel (1827 -1885), who at the age of twenty-six scored a phenomenal success in Adolphe Adam’s opéra-comique Le Bijou perdu, which she premiered in Paris. She then took on a more dramatic role in Halévy’s Jaguarita l’Indienne, whose great Invocation with chorus ("À moi ma cohorte!") again hit the bullseye in a run of 124 performances over just a few months. Cabel enjoyed one hit after another, in Auber’s Manon Lescaut and La Part du diable, Meyerbeer’s L’Étoile du Nord and Le Pardon de Ploërmel, Victor Massé’s Galathée, and Le Songe d’une nuit d’été by Ambroise Thomas, who in 1866 gave her the biggest role of her career: Philine in Mignon, based on Goethe. In partnership with the musicologists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, who have resurrected and edited all these unjustly forgotten rarities, and Pierre Bleuse conducting the Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir, Jodie Devos pays tribute to this star of the nineteenth century, whose audacity and sense of mischief she undoubtedly shares! © Alpha Classics
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Antonio Salieri : Les Horaces

Christophe Rousset

Full Operas - Released August 31, 2018 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik - Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik
Ever since Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus and the subsequent film by Milos Forman, the operas of Mozart's rival Antonio Salieri have enjoyed a revival: historians determined that not only did Salieri not poison Mozart, he admired him, and Mozart at least respected the older Italian. Indeed, Les Horaces (1786) represents several accomplishments that were not on Mozart's résumé: it is a full-scale French opera, and its recitatives are orchestrally accompanied and contribute elegantly to the action. Berlioz, always an astute critic, numbered himself among the admirers of Salieri's French operas of the 1780s; this one was not as successful as the others, but that could have been due to any number of factors. The plot deals with a woman, Camille, whose romantic life is caught between factions in a war in early Roman times, and Rousset's live reading here benefits from a strong soprano lead, Dutch singer and French Baroque specialist Judith van Wanroij. Other singers likewise step up, but the real credit goes to Rousset, who gets the strengths of Salieri's score: the grand intermèdes, and the exciting finale of Act 1, where the joining-together of action and music is in Mozart's league even if the tunes are not. Also praiseworthy is the engineering work of the curiously named Little Tribeca team, who obtain the best possible sound from none other than Versailles. Highly recommended to those who have dismissed Salieri: this is a sympathetic and enthusiastic performance of his music. © TiVo
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Paris - Buenos Aires

Guy Marchand

French Music - Released June 6, 2006 | O Plus

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Lou-Adriane Cassidy vous dit : Bonsoir

Lou-Adriane Cassidy

French Music - Released November 5, 2021 | Bravo musique

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Live au Grand Rex

Bénabar

French Music - Released October 1, 2004 | Jive

Singer and songwriter Benabar has a talent for crafting literate songs that draw on film, jazz, and folk motifs, and he is a decidedly post-modern, 21st century artist who draws on the history of chanson with care and intelligence. This two disc, 24-track playlist reproduces his Live au Grand Rex concert set.© Steve Leggett /TiVo
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Oui Je Le Suis

Sefyu

Hip-Hop/Rap - Released October 17, 2011 | Because Music

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À nos cœurs

Anne Sila

Pop - Released October 29, 2021 | Play Two

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Suis-moi

Louis Bertignac

Rock - Released January 1, 2014 | Universal Music Division Barclay

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Les Risques du métier

Bénabar

French Music - Released May 19, 2003 | Jive

Distinctions Victoire de la musique - The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Paris / Buenos Aires

Guy Marchand

French Music - Released June 6, 2006 | BRJ Music

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Louis, Matthieu, Joseph & Anna Chedid

Louis, Matthieu, Joseph & Anna Chedid

French Music - Released October 23, 2015 | Universal Music Division Barclay

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Jésus dans mon cœur (12 chants pour l'éveil à la foi)

Cécile Klinguer

Children - Released June 8, 2011 | ADF Musique

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Charpentier: Louise - The Sony Opera House

Georges Prêtre

Classical - Released January 1, 1990 | Sony Classical

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Salieri : Tarare

Christophe Rousset

Classical - Released June 7, 2019 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Gramophone Editor's Choice - Choc de Classica
While Mozart was largely overlooked in the French capital, Antonio Salieri took on the reigns of the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera), a fruitful collaboration that was completely broken up by the French Revolution. After the success of his work Les Danaïdes, composed for Paris in 1784, Salieri worked tirelessly with Beaumarchais, spurred on by the success and scandal of his Figaro, on a new project which would become Tarare. Beaumarchais moved himself shamelessly toward stardom, skillfully self-promoting and attending rehearsals so as to assure that the orchestra played pianissimo to emphasize the primacy of his verse during performances. Beaumarchais found that the music was too overwhelming to “embellish the lyrics”.Created one year after Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (which was relatively well-received in Vienna before triumphing in Prague), Tarare was an immense success in Paris maintaining the status of the composer’s repertoire despite the political turmoil of the time before disappearing from view around 1826, thereon ceasing to be played. Beaumarchais’ words were immediately adapted into Italian by Lorenzo Da Ponte to be performed and met with equal success in Vienna. Tarare is half lyrical tragedy, half comic opera with a hint of orientalism.After resuscitating Les Danaïdes and Les Horaces, Christophe Rousset finished off his series of recordings dedicated to Salieri’s French operas for the Parisian public. Tarare is very much of its time, that of the Lumières, and used the power of art to challenge despotism in all its forms. Thanks to Christophe Rousset’s excellent delivery and lively direction, this recording enables one to judge the merits of the composition and the chasm that separates an honest and talented musician from a solitary and impassioned one like Mozart. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released January 1, 1992 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Oui,Je Suis La

Shak el Jay

Hip-Hop/Rap - Released January 18, 2023 | BRODAS RECORDS

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Premier album

Lio

Pop - Released April 15, 1980 | ZE Records

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À la française

Arno

Rock - Released July 5, 1995 | Because Music

Sans Tsu-Tsou

Zaz

Pop - Released December 2, 2011 | Warner (France)

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Recorded during her 2011 European tour, Sans Tsu Tsou is the first live album from critically acclaimed French jazz-soul chanteuse Isabelle Geffroy, aka Zaz. It contains performances of all 11 tracks from her chart-topping self-titled 2010 debut album, including Top 40 hits "Je Veux" and "La Fée," alongside five previously unreleased songs such as "Pray the Sunshine," "Aux Détenteurs," and "Je Saute Partout."© Jon O'Brien /TiVo