Roberto Alagna - french arias
Roberto Alagnais without peer among contemporary tenors in the French repertory, as this excellent collection of staples, sprinkled with rarities, demonstrates. He has the right blend of sweetness for the lyric selections and exciting vocal heft for those requiring more muscle. If one must find something to carp at, it's the tenor's occasional tendency to slip into an inappropriate Italianate verismo style. Examples of the "sweet" Alagna are his gorgeous floating soft ending to "Je crois entendre encore," from Bizet'sThe Pearlfishers, and the lovely head voice in the Lalo aria. His "Rachel, quand du Seigneur," a favorite of tenors from Caruso to Richard Tucker, is taken at a sluggish tempo, but it has the requisite vocal finish and characterization. And Alagna creates the necessary sense of wonder in the opening of "Pays merveilleux," from Meyerbeer'sL'Africaine. The Bruneau selection that closes the disc is a welcome rescue of a lovely farewell-to-life aria from a long-forgotten late-Romantic opera. Unlike most collections done with a generalized, one-size-fits-all approach, Alagna's finds him almost always in character. Bertrand De Billy's accompaniments are sometimes too restrained (the orchestral introduction to the Bizet aria is downright sleepy), but that shouldn't keep admirers of French opera and world-class singing from grabbing this disc.--Dan Davis