Heroines 1997

The glamorous young French coloratura stunned everyone at the EMI Gala at Glyndebourne in 1997 with a dazzling rendition of Cunegonde’s ‘Glitter and be gay’ from Bernstein’s Candide: it was an unexpected choice but Dessay delivered it with such wit, needle-point precision and sheer insouciance that she won all hearts. Why she has yet to appear in either a Glyndebourne or Covent Garden production – though debuts are planned in both theatres for 2002 – is one of the great mysteries of British operatic life, for Dessay, as her EMI album of French operatic arias (5/97) amply demonstrated, is an acclaimed star in Vienna, Salzburg, the New York Met and, of course, the French capital, where she is something close to a cult figure.

Les douze études que rassemble ce volume abordent sous différentes facettes le personnage de la femme dans la gnose et dans le manichéisme. Dans la première partie (Images et symboles), l'auteur dévoile la signification cachée de quelques figures féminines qui ont joué un rôle sur la scène du mythe. …