French sopranos Véronique Gens and Sandrine Piau are friends rather than rivals, with longstanding connections to the period performance collective Les Arts Florissants. But for this recording they step into the shoes of two Parisian divas, famous at the time of the French Revolution, and whose rivalry is rather more probable. Exploring the divas’ repertoire, by composers like Grétry and Edelmann (whose career was cut short by the guillotine), they unearth some forgotten but fascinating music at the dawn of the Romantic era. Things open with a bang, as Piau’s lighter, more transparent voice tackles a thunderous aria by Monsigny. The darker colouring of Gens is irresistible in a yearning number from Gluck’s opera Alceste. And they join together explosively in a fireworks duet from J.C. Bach’s La Clemenza di Scipione. With chiselled playing from the Concert de la Loge, this is an entertainingly instructive passport to a lost world.
- Concerto Italiano & Rinaldo Alessandrini
- Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Elsa Dreisig, Sabine Devieilhe & Michael Spyres
- Reinoud Van Mechelen & A Nocte Temporis
- Emöke Baráth, Artaserse & Philippe Jaroussky
- Elisabeth Breuer, Modo Antiquo & Federico Maria Sardelli
- Laurence Cummings, Anna Starushkevych, Festspiel Orchester Gottingen, Emily Fons, Anna Devin, Iryna Dziashko, Maarten Engeltjes, Edward Grint, Christopher Lowrey & Njål Sparbo
- Carolyn Sampson & Kristian Bezuidenhout