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though he has no understanding of what’s happening within the castle and is unable to escape the confines of his own, outdated idealism.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

Recordings of Offenbach's 1868 operetta La Périchole, here performed in an 1873 revision, have been rather uncommon. True, it doesn't contain any of the big Offenbach hits, and its Peruvian setting, with a variety of Spanish dances and chinoiserie standing in for whatever music might have been heard in colonial Peru, seems increasingly preposterous as time goes on. However, verisimilitude has never been a requirement in operetta, and this story of the titular street singer (who was an actual historical individual) pursued by a sleazy colonial administrator hits a lot of the bases. Anglophone listeners will note that Arthur Sullivan surely knew this music inside and out, and replicated the combination of limpid songs for the heroine and quite a few sharp narrative choruses. This production, recorded live in 2018 at the Festival Radio France Occitanie in Montpellier, is nothing fancy, but that is its charm. La Périchole is nicely sung by a mezzo-soprano with the delightful name of Aude Extrémo, who resists the temptation to ham it up (sample her drunk scene, "Ah, quel diner je viens de faire") and inhabits the role well. The large cast is consistent, and conductor Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, far from their Baroque origins, keep things moving in a lively way. One gets the sense that Offenbach would have been fully satisfied, and the recording is a must for any operetta fan.© TiVo

Released just a year after 2003's three-disc Longbox, French Soul is the second, more slimmed down retrospective from Belgian singer/songwriter Axelle Red. Its two-disc, 28-track collection covers her five studio albums, from 1993's Sans Plus Attendre ("Sensualite") to 2002's Face A/Face B ("Toujours"). While the first disc includes original versions of "Ma Priere," "Le Monde Tourne Mal," and "Bimbo a Moi," the second disc features ten soul reworkings of classic hits such as "Elle Danse Seule," "Faire des Mamours," and "Rester Femme." The album also includes a duet with French vocalist Renaud and one English-speaking track, "People Get Ready." © Jon O'Brien /TiVo

Mon Frère is the debut album of French singer and songwriter Maxime le Forestier. Mostly acoustic, it makes no attempt to hide the major influences of Georges Brassens, James Taylor, and Bob Dylan on his work and world-view. Standout tracks include the autobiographical "Parachutiste," the title cut, "San Francisco," "Comme un Arbre," and "Education Sentimentale"; all of these songs have earned legendary status in French popular music.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

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After leaving Tai Phong, Jean-Jacques Goldman's solo career gradually took off between 1981 and the release of Non Homologué, the best-selling French recording of 1986. He followed it with Entre Gris Clair et Gris Foncé in 1987, which sold even better. Part of this has to do with the ubiquitous presence of Goldman on French radio and MTV, but the rest is the sound on the recording, which balances rock dynamics with very stylized '80s production: glossy keyboards, heavily treated guitars, drum machines and programs, etc. And then there are the hooks, as evidenced in the first single "La Bas."© Thom Jurek /TiVo

L'opéra de quat'sous ("The Four Penny Opera") is nothing more or less than Die Dreigroschenoper ("The Threepenny Opera") of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The Threepenny Opera was a hit from the beginning and was almost immediately translated into French, among other languages (even Hungarian), after its 1928 premiere, but here, it is sung in a new translation by Alexandre Pateau. To these imperfectly francophone ears, the translation seems fluent and sharp. The original opera, of course, was based on an English original and featured some adapted French poetry, so a translation into French is less of an experiment than one might think. This was a live recording from the summer of 2023, and although the production featured English and German supertitles, there are no translations in the booklet here. In other ways, too, the production might have fared better live than it does on a recording. The singers are mostly untrained stage actors who ham up the characters in a way that probably worked in person but doesn't come across in audio. (The exceptions here are Claïna Clavaron, who turns in an arresting Mack the Knife at the beginning, Véronique Vella's Celia Peachum, and Marie Oppert as Polly Peachum.) The most important thing to note for listeners who think they are getting simply a French Dreigroschenoper is that the music and text are reinterpreted and reworked. There are some cuts, some added material, spoken descriptions, and, from director Thomas Ostermeier and conductor Maxime Pascal, a percussion-heavy setting that emphasizes every bit of popular-music influence in the score. None of this is necessarily untrue to the spirit of the work, but listeners should sample well and see whether their minds fill in the various blanks here. Alpha's live recording is clear and not marred by stage and production noises.© James Manheim /TiVo

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