Jodi Devos

After her triumph with the album Offenbach Colorature (ALPHA437), Jodie Devos has chosen to follow in the footsteps of one of her compatriots, the Belgian coloratura soprano Marie Cabel (1827 -1885), who at the age of twenty-six scored a phenomenal success in Adolphe Adam’s opéracomique Le Bijou perdu, which she premiered in Paris. She then took on a more dramatic role in Halévy’s Jaguarita l’Indienne, whose great Invocation with chorus (‘À moi ma cohorte!’) again hit the bullseye in a run of 124 performances over just a few months.

After her triumph with the album Offenbach Colorature (ALPHA437), Jodie Devos has chosen to follow in the footsteps of one of her compatriots, the Belgian coloratura soprano Marie Cabel (1827 -1885), who at the age of twenty-six scored a phenomenal success in Adolphe Adam’s opéracomique Le Bijou perdu, which she premiered in Paris. She then took on a more dramatic role in Halévy’s Jaguarita l’Indienne, whose great Invocation with chorus (‘À moi ma cohorte!’) again hit the bullseye in a run of 124 performances over just a few months.

Soprano Jodie Devos, who has signed with Alpha for several recordings, here pays homage to Offenbach, whose bicentenary of his birth is celebrated in 2019. This programme shows Offenbach’s fascination with the vocal fireworks of coloratura divas. This kind of ‘lyric coloratura’ or ‘soprano leggero’ voice runs like a thread through most of the composer’s oeuvre, from his first pieces for two or three soloists to those grand frescoes of his maturity, La Vie parisienne, Robinson Crusoé, and Orphée aux Enfers.

After her triumph with the album Offenbach Colorature (ALPHA437), Jodie Devos has chosen to follow in the footsteps of one of her compatriots, the Belgian coloratura soprano Marie Cabel (1827 -1885), who at the age of twenty-six scored a phenomenal success in Adolphe Adam’s opéra-comique Le Bijou perdu , which she premiered in Paris. She then took on a more dramatic role in Halévy’s Jaguarita l’Indienne , whose great Invocation with chorus (‘À moi ma cohorte!’) again hit the bullseye in a run of 124 performances over just a few months. Cabel enjoyed one hit after another, in Auber’s Manon Lescaut and La Part du diable , Meyerbeer’s L’Étoile du Nord and Le Pardon de Ploërmel , Victor Massé’s Galathée , and Le Songe d’une nuit d’été by Ambroise Thomas, who in 1866 gave her the biggest role of her career: Philine in Mignon , based on Goethe. In partnership with the musicologists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, who have resurrected and edited all these unjustly forgotten rarities, and Pierre Bleuse conducting the Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir, Jodie Devos pays tribute to this star of the nineteenth century, whose audacity and sense of mischief she undoubtedly shares!

C'est en 2006 que ce virtuose des mots nous a quittés. L’histoire, ou la légende, colportée par Raymond Devos lui-même, veut que sa carrière lui apparut clairement à l’occasion d’un bon mot, qui n’était pas le sien : « J’avais trois jours devant moi ; je dis, tiens, je vais aller voir la mer. Je prends le train, j’arrive là-bas. Je vois le portier de l’hôtel. Je lui dis : Où est la mer ? Il me dit : La mer, elle est démontée. » …