This new Roberto Alagna disc offers a welcome and enjoyable collection of popular and less-well-known French opera arias. Along with the more or less standard fare of Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, Bizet’s Pearl Fishers, Halévy’s La Juive, Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine, Thomas’ Mignon, Berlioz’s Faust, Gluck’s Iphigénie, and Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys, there are arias (and some recitatives) from Méhul’s Joseph, Gounod’s Mireille, Grétry’s L’Amant jaloux, Bazin’s Maître Pathelin, Cherubini’s Les Abencérages, and Bruneau’s L’Attaque du Moulin. All are expertly performed by Alagna, with an accomplished technique that allows him to produce full-bodied sound in the loud passages and maintain tonal solidity even in the softest pianissimos (no easy feat!). This lends dynamic excitement to the dramatic passages in “Rachel, quand du Seigneur” and “Vois ma misère, hélas”. In these and others, Alagna’s emotional and dramatic identification with the protagonists makes for highly involving mini-portrayals.
That said, about half-way into this album I started to feel a bit of ear-fatigue. Alagna’s voice doesn’t have the kind of ringing resonance characteristic of Pavarotti or the shining warmth of Björling–qualities that make you ever eager for the next selection and sorry when the program is over. So, as with most collections of this type, I rarely play the whole thing (72 minutes) at one sitting. Still, it’s great to have this delightful repertoire beautifully sung by one of today’s leading tenors, persuasively accompanied by Betrand de Billy and the Covent Garden orchestra. EMI’s recording is well balanced, though the hard reverberation relays the sound of an empty hall.
