Bru Zane

‘So Romantique !’ illustrates the ‘profoundly sentimental’ side of French opera from the 1830s to the 1900s, which gradually came to be judged overwrought and was condemned to partial oblivion. ‘I am convinced that this is because the principals of interpretation were lost’, says the tenor Cyrille Dubois. ‘I have therefore put together this programme, which gives pride of place to rarities while highlighting the theatrical character and the use of registers so emblematic of the French ténor de grâce , in the hope of restoring this precious French heritage to its former glory.’ The sleuthing skills of the Palazzetto Bru Zane have assembled these treasures by Bizet, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Auber, Halévy, Donizetti, Thomas and Delibes, the less well-known Godard, Dubois and Silver, and the virtually unknown Luce-Varlet and Clapisson. With the Orchestre National de Lille conducted by Pierre Dumoussaud, the French tenor deploys the full range of his artistry, the impressive high notes, the luminous tone and the graceful phrasing that is ‘so Cyrille’!

Women composers had great difficulty in making their voices heard and gaining recognition during their lifetimes. Even today, they are all too rarely heard in the concert hall or the opera house. That situation obviously cries out for a change in attitude, but then come the questions: all right, let’s programme women composers, but which ones, and which of their works? In this eight-CD set featuring several hundred performers, the Palazzetto Bru Zane offers its initial answer as far as nineteenth-century France is concerned. The selections range over chamber music, orchestral works, piano pieces and songs. They highlight twenty-one female creators, from already identified personalities like Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Pauline Viardot, Marie Jaëll and Mel Bonis to such completely unknown figures as Charlotte Sohy, Madeleine Jaeger, Marthe Grumbach, Jeanne Danglas, Hedwige Chrétien and Madeleine Lemariey. From now on, there will be no excuse for ignoring Romantic women composers.

With the rise of Romanticism, the topics of opera changed from the mythological fantasy of Baroque operas to the fairytale fantasy which graced the French stage long before Romanticism reached other European nations. Initiated by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this project is built like a universal fairytale, inspired by Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, and others, as set to music by French composers of the Romantic period, alternating between famous composers such as Offenbach and Rossini and little known masters like Viardot, Silver, and Isouard. This imaginary opera was conceived and transcribed by Alexandre Dratwicki for piano quartet and two singers- a soprano and a mezzo, the roles of which are performed here by Jodie Devos and Caroline Meng.