Les Divas d’Offenbach
Works by Offenbach
Véronique Gens (soprano); Chœur et Orchestre National des Pays de La Loire/Hervé Niquet
Alpha Classics ALPHA1168 55:49 mins
This is not for the po-faced. If you enjoy charming and inventive music, much of it unfamiliar, allied to witty texts and sung magnificently, then Les Divas d’Offenbach will not disappoint. An outstanding earlier Alpha release of rarities, Offenbach Colorature, explored the composer’s love of stratospheric vocal pyrotechnics, delivered with champagne sparkle by the much-missed Jodie Devos.
While that repertoire dazzles, the fine wine of this new disc features music written for the sopranos who tended to carry the drama, singers who possessed the linguistic dexterity and dramatic flair to develop the plot and deliver the often risqué jokes.
It is music ideally suited to Véronique Gens, with her sumptuous voice and relishing of linguistic nuance. From the enthusiastically lovestruck Hélène, in the previously unpublished ‘Un rêve, mon dieu, c’est un rêve’ via the tenderly intimate in ‘Beauté qui viens des cieux’ from Robinson Crusoé to the defiantly coquettish Madame Favart in the original, uncut ‘Je passe sur mon enface’, Gens is irresistible.
She inhabits each of the diverse characters here. Cunégonde’s tale from Le Roi Carotte, of Parisian society providing the ‘finishing school’ her convent upbringing lacked, is a masterpiece of comic flair; ‘Je crois bien et je le promets’ from La Diva is a riot; while the better-known ‘Vous aimez le danger’ is a peerless portrayal of the Grande Duchesse’s barely controlled desire for military men.
Captured in warm, glowing sound, with the superb Choeur et Orchestre des Pays de la Loire matching the music’s joie de vivre under Hervé Niquet, this is simply a delight.