Adrienne D. Renee Bagby

UN HOMMAGE PASSIONNÉ À TRAVERS SES CHANSONS : La carrière au long cours de Renée Martel est exceptionnelle et typique des plus grands artistes de sa génération. Le parcours musical de Renée oscille entre le monde de la chanson populaire et celui du country. Sa discographie actuelle compte plus de 25 albums originaux, et sa riche carrière porte l’empreinte de son talent, entre modernité et respect des traditions. Renée Martel a toujours su conserver cette force d’émotion propre aux grands professionnels de la scène depuis près de 60 ans de carrière. Renée est celle qui incarne la vraie chanson populaire des années 60, 70 et 80. Bref, c’est un monument incontournable de la chanson d’ici. Les plus grandes interprètes féminines de la chanson au Québec rendent un hommage passionné à Renée et reprennent avec bonheur son répertoire et souligne ainsi son apport majeur à la chanson et à la musique de chez nous.

"Guilty Pleasures" is the long-awaited follow-up to Renees Grammy winner The Beautiful Voice. This album allows Renee to indulge in musical cherry-picking, singing songs and arias in eight different languages. The sheer, unabashed beauty of these pieces provides their thematic connection. Ranging from familiar favorites like the Flower Duet from Lakme (sung with Renees friend Susan Graham) to rapturous, rarely-heard melodies of Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Rachmaninov, Guilty Pleasures is a collection of treats Renee has long wanted to enjoy: an album of pure gratification. A special treat is an aria from John Coriglianos The Ghosts of Versailles, a twentieth-century American opera that allows Renee the chance to sing in her native language.

On 8 October, Renée Fleming will release Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene, her new album with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Inspired by the solace Fleming found while hiking near her Virginia home during lockdown, the album explores the centrality of nature in Romantic-era song and highlights the peril and fragility of the natural world today.

“With Voice of Nature Fleming has, in the enforced pause of a pandemic, taken the opportunity to look around her, and to examine how art can address some of our shared challenges. She has combined her deep love of the art song with an urgent impulse to heed science alerting us to the climate crisis.” – Charles Isherwood “The music on the album begins in a time almost two centuries ago, when people had a profound connection to the beauty of nature. Now we have reached a moment when we see all too clearly the effects of our own activity, and the fragility of our environment.” – Renée Fleming

A troupe where everyone acts as much as they sing, illuminated by a dream trial (Bourvil!) and the devilish gesture of Cluytens, set the standard for the Tales in 1948. Offenbach having died before having finished and ordered the score of his Tales of Hoffmann, it was Ernest Guiraud who was tasked with making it “viable”. In February 1881, the first spectators discovered a largely mutilated work: in addition to significant cuts in the prologue and the epilogue (which take place in a Nuremberg tavern), the entire last act – that of Giulietta, the Venetian courtesan, in whose home the poet has his reflection stolen – had been discarded. Only the Barcarolle survived, slipped between the acts of Olympia (the mechanical doll who ends up smashed) and Antonia (the young consumptive who dies from having sung). In 1907, the score published by Éditions Choudens transformed the spoken dialogues into recitatives (composed by Guiraud), inserted the air “Scintille diamant” (added by Gunsbourg) and restored Giulietta’s act, admittedly condensed and inserted between those of Olympia and Antonia. It is this version that Les Contes d’Hoffmann, recorded in March 1948, document. The disc preceded their revival at the Salle Favart, in a staging directed by Louis Musy and under the quicksilver baton of André Cluytens. The cast brings together a “troupe” welded together by the spirit of the theatre, the relief and colour of the word: everyone here plays as much as they sing.

A troupe where everyone acts as much as they sing, illuminated by a dream trial (Bourvil!) and the devilish gesture of Cluytens, set the standard for the Tales in 1948. Offenbach having died before having finished and ordered the score of his Tales of Hoffmann, it was Ernest Guiraud who was tasked with making it “viable”. In February 1881, the first spectators discovered a largely mutilated work: in addition to significant cuts in the prologue and the epilogue (which take place in a Nuremberg tavern), the entire last act – that of Giulietta, the Venetian courtesan, in whose home the poet has his reflection stolen – had been discarded. Only the Barcarolle survived, slipped between the acts of Olympia (the mechanical doll who ends up smashed) and Antonia (the young consumptive who dies from having sung). In 1907, the score published by Éditions Choudens transformed the spoken dialogues into recitatives (composed by Guiraud), inserted the air “Scintille diamant” (added by Gunsbourg) and restored Giulietta’s act, admittedly condensed and inserted between those of Olympia and Antonia. It is this version that Les Contes d’Hoffmann, recorded in March 1948, document. The disc preceded their revival at the Salle Favart, in a staging directed by Louis Musy and under the quicksilver baton of André Cluytens. The cast brings together a “troupe” welded together by the spirit of the theatre, the relief and colour of the word: everyone here plays as much as they sing.

Surely Renée Fleming's soprano must be one of the most beautiful voices before the public today. Though renowned for her interpretations of Mozart, Strauss, and Verdi, as well as for her commitment to contemporary music, she says that the bel canto repertoire has always been central to her career. On this recording, which features scenes and arias from operas by Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini, she proves that she has achieved total, effortless technical mastery of the uniquely difficult vocal writing characteristic of the style. Every note is perfectly placed. Her runs, including scales over a huge range in both directions, are as clear and evenly paced as a chain of exquisite pearls. Her leaps always land in the center of the pitch. Her intonation is flawless.