Maria Callas is credited with changing the history of opera. Known as La Divina, she continues to fascinate as a supreme artist, but also as a woman and an icon of style. Her interpretations were as compelling for their dramatic truth as for their musical integrity. Her voice, with it's extraordinary range, was as distinctive as her infallible sense for a phrase. A magnetic presence, she brought operatic heroines to vivid life, magically shaping and colouring her tone, and making insightful use of the text of the libretto.

If Massenet is best-known as the champion of French opera, his contribution to the genre of the m�lodie merits reassessment - as is demonstrated by this programme of exquisitely orchestrated songs, all of which have remained in manuscript form. The Expressions lyriques form the pinnacle of these experiments, blending speech and song. The cycle Chansons des bois d'Amaranthe is also notable for the originality of it's scoring: a quartet of singers in dialogue with an orchestra animated by a voluble piano part.

MASSENET: Werther (Thill, Vallin) (1931)

MANON

MANON: JURINAC-DERMOTA-OLAH-NE

Paris discovered Massenet's Griselidis at the Opera-Comique on 20 November 1901. The work is based on a medieval folktale retold by Boccaccio and Perrault, among others, and already set to music several times in the Baroque era. It gave Massenet the opportunity to handle the 'Gothic' colouring of which the early twentieth century could not get enough. The inventive libretto by Armand Silvestre and Eugene Morand explores unusually contrasted registers: the religious, the fantastical, the sentimental and the warlike. Above all, the presence of a scene-stealing Devil, saddled with a cantankerous wife, offers the possibility of contrasting the serious (or sublime) and the comic (or grotesque). Massenet thus produced a rare example of cross-genre equilibrium, a jewel of French demi-caractere, typical of the Opera-Comique repertory. Although the opera renounces spoken dialogue, theatrical declamation nevertheless creeps into a few particularly successful scenes. Two magnificent baritone roles - the Marquis and the Devil - oppose each other with the full trappings of Romantic vocality, while Griselidis makes a noble and introspective heroine, the perfect model of the French soprano.

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Even though it is mainly to Manon and Werther that Massenet owes his renown, he composed operas of different genre and character, which just as effectively reveal his fine lyrical vein and talent in depicting various emotions. Don Quichotte is brilliantly comic. Finished in 1910, after a career studded with successes, the opera was premièred at the Opera Theatre in Monte Carlo. It was a resounding success, fostered by the presence, in the main roles, of famous singers such as the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin as Don Quichotte and Lucy Arbell as Dulcinée. A few months later, in December of the same year, it would be repeated at Paris's Théâtre Galté-Lyrique, with Lucy Arbell this time partnered by Vanni Marcoux (Don Quichotte) and Lucine Fugère (Sancho Panza). The subject, from Cervantes's masterpiece, had been versified by the young and extravagant writer Jacques Le Lorrain. The story is quite different from that of Miguel de Cervantes's hero, appearing, rather, as a self-portrait of the poet himself: the knight becomes a model of virtue, of generosity, driven by lofty ideals Dulcinée, from maid in an inn becomes a woman of the world. Massenet, who, despite the difficult period he was going through, conceived a rich score, full of verve and maturity.

Eloise Bella Kohn is a rare artist: eclectic pianist, record producer, festival founder, committed to intercultural dialogue, her passion for music, dance and literature drives a creativity that nourishes her universe from baroque music to contemporary repertoire. Eloise Bella Kohn is one of the most promising artists on today's classical music scene, and performs all over the world in prestigious concert halls and festivals.

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Includes aria(s) by various composers. Soloist: Eva Gustavson.
Includes song(s) by various composers. Soloist: Eva Gustavson.

Deutsche Oper Berlin's production of Massenet's four-act version of Herodiade features an outstanding cast, including the Australian soprano Nicole Car and Canadian baritone Etienne Dupuis. This live recording from June 2023 is conducted by Deutsche Oper Berlin's principal guest conductor, Enrique Mazzola.

Poème

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La Fl釦e Parisienne

Torn between her desire of a life of splendour and riches and her devotion to her true love Des Grieux (Reece Clarke), the alluring and capricious Manon (Natalia Osipova) pays the ultimate price. MacMillan's adaptation of Abbe Prevost's novel L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut?embodies his acute insight into human psychology and his mastery of narrative choreography. This is MacMillan at his best; finding full expression in the impassioned duets of the central couple, visceral and urgent in their desire.

Torn between her desire of a life of splendour and riches and her devotion to her true love Des Grieux (Reece Clarke), the alluring and capricious Manon (Natalia Osipova) pays the ultimate price. MacMillan's adaptation of Abbe Prevost's novel L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut?embodies his acute insight into human psychology and his mastery of narrative choreography. This is MacMillan at his best; finding full expression in the impassioned duets of the central couple, visceral and urgent in their desire.

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The “striking interpretation” (Neue Musikzeitung) of Jules Massenet’s operatic rarity Don Quichotte at Bregenz Festival, received an "unanimous jubilation for director Mariame Clément, her outfitter Julia Hansen and the entire stage team: a typical Bregenz Festival orchid flourished!“ (Neue Musikzeitung Online). But this opera is also a musical discovery, not least because of the outstanding cast: “the balsamic sound of well-being of Gábor Bretz, David Stouts mobile Sancho Panza is also wonderfully shaded (Salzburger Nachrichten) and “Anna Goryachova impresses as Dulcinée with vocal clarity and scenic presence”. (Wiener Zeitung) “The Bregenz Festival discovers a dreamlike operatic beauty full of melancholy and farewell” (Salzburger Nachrichten)

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MASSENET: Werther (1901 Baritone version)

Massenet: Don Quichotte (1957)

Soprano Shudong Braamse presents a selection of Romantic French art songs, illustrating Massenet's arresting motives, graceful vocal lines, and well-placed accompaniments. Exhibiting Massenet's meticulous style, Braamse creates tender and dynamic imagery, intertwining punctuated piano lines with her sensitive voice, which suggests the colors of a clarinet, while turbulent textures denote climactic moments of emotion. Massenet enriches motives and themes with the incorporation of religious scenes and the evocations of remote locales in works such as the austere Le Petit Je�sus and exotic Chanson and a louse. In a critique of the evolution of Massenet's operas, Debussy wrote that "[the composer] surely would have been wiser to go on expressing his genius in delicate colors and whispering melodies and in light airy structures." These melodies provide a glimpse of the supple creativity that Debussy so valued, and the effortless confidence, control, and delicacy Braamse offers Massenet's captivating songs.

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