un Amant de Rêve

This selection of pieces from Offenbach operettas (and one opera) raises a question: why hasn't Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova made more of a specialty of comic roles in her recordings? Her operatic discography, with very few exceptions, consists of serious characters, but the flair with which she performs these arias and ensembles demonstrates a real comic gift, and that's something of a rarity in opera stars. (Her stage roles, in fact, are pretty well balanced between serious and comic operas, with a fair number of Rossini, Mozart, and Offenbach comedies in her repertoire.) The current disc at least begins to rectify the gap in her recorded legacy.