Sylvie Richterová

Premiered at the King's Theatre, London during May 1739, this is not a familiar Handel opera, although its music certainly will be. It is a pasticcio opera cobbled together by Handel using an existing libretto and music he plundered from the little known Francesco Araja (c1709-1770).

Sylvie Vartan is a French pop institution, as popular today as when she first took the y-y scene by storm in 1962 with the first of a half century-worth of hits. The vivacious and always stylish Vartan was also a pioneer amongst the new breed of French female artists, crossing the Atlantic several times in the early 60s to record. She proved remarkably adept at tackling material in English, which resulted in many superb recordings chanted in a husky, compelling accent.

Fans of French pop of the 1960s need to get this collection, no questions asked. Sylvie Vartan may not have the hipster cred that Françoise Hardy or France Gall each have, possibly because she never crossed over to the U.K. and U.S. like Hardy did or never worked with Serge Gainsbourg like Gall. She also suffers a little by having a long career that lasted through the '70s and '80s, and fell prey to many of the cheesier aspects of those decades. Irresistiblement: Sylvie Vartan 1965-1968 shows that Vartan was equal, if not superior, to any French singer of the '60s.