Diana Damrau – Meyerbeer – Grand Opera (2017) [Qobuz FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Giacomo Meyerbeer, the French composer with an Italian-German name (adopted) and a Jewish background, was the toast of Paris for much of the middle 19th century, the musical collaborator of the great Eugène Scribe, and the single person in whose hands the genre of grand opera most clearly took shape. His music fell out of fashion among the late Romantics, was further depressed by Nazi bans, and has taken a while to come back into style. This fine anthology by German soprano Diana Damrau will help his cause. Plainly a labor of love, the album includes arias in German (one very early) and Italian as well as French, and among the latter from opéras comiques as well as grand opera. Some of the music sounds like Rossini, some like Wagner (whom Meyerbeer backed early in his career and was repaid by an anti-Semitic campaign), but most of it has a distinctive voice marked above all by splendid vocal writing. The music often hangs in the soprano’s top register, and Damrau evokes how Meyerbeer’s audiences must have felt on the knife’s edge. There are examples of Meyerbeer’s masterful orchestration, such as the flute duo from L’étoile du Nord, and the support from the Orchestra and Chorus of the National Opera of Lyon is top-notch, as is Erato’s engineering. One gets the impression here that no expense was spared, rare enough in opera these days, and that the money was well spent. To hear it all tied together, sample “O beau pays de la Touraine”, with Damrau excelling in both the haunting middle section and the fireworks of the finale. Brava!

Tracklist

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
1 Le Prophète, Act 1: “Mon coeur s’élance et palpite” (Berthe) 04:03
2 Robert le Diable, Act 4: “Robert, toi que j’aime” (Isabelle, Robert) 05:52
3 Alimelek, oder die beiden Kalifen, Act 1: “Nur in der Dämm’rung Stille” (Irene) 06:17
4 L’Étoile du Nord, Act 3: “Ah, mon Dieu !… C’est bien l’air que chaque matin” (Catherine, Chorus) 06:57
5 L’Africaine, Act 5: “Là-bas, sous l’arbre noir… Fleurs nouvelles” (Inès) 05:33
6 Il Crociato in Egitto, Act 2: “D’una madre disperata… Con qual gioia” (Palmide, Aladino, Chorus) 09:20
7 Le Pardon de Ploërmel, Act 2: “Comme cette nuit est lente à se dissiper !… Ombre légère” (Dinorah) 08:20
8 Ein Feldlager in Schlesien, Act 3 : “Oh Schwester, find’ ich dich!… Lebe wohl, geliebte Schwester” (Therese, Vielka) 06:52
9 Emma di Resburgo, Act 1: “Sulla rupe triste, sola… Ah questo bacio” (Emma, Chorus) 06:39
10 Les Huguenots, Act 2: “Ô beau pays de la Touraine” (Marguerite, Urbain, Coryphée, Dame d’honneur, Chorus) 12:54
11 L’Africaine, Act 1: “Anna, qu’entends-je ?… Adieu, mon doux rivage” (Inès, Anna) 08:33

Personnel
Diana Damrau, soprano
Orchestre de l’Opera National de Lyon
Emmanuel Villaume, conductor

Download:

mqs.link_DianaDamrauMeyerbeerGrandpera20172496Qbuz.part1.rar
mqs.link_DianaDamrauMeyerbeerGrandpera20172496Qbuz.part2.rar