French Opera Arias

This is a very attractive record. Battle sings cleanly in well-articulated French and tackles a wide range of soprano arias, in all of which she is able to stand comparison with great figures of the present and the past. In the two extracts from Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, she sings the brilliant waltz-song, “Je veux vivre” with just the right sense of tension infused with gaiety. Gounod composed this at the behest of his prima donna, Mme Carvalho, who had to cut the Act 4 aria, “Amour, ranime mon courage”, as it was too heavy for her voice. (Or perhaps the music was just too modern, difficult to imagine now.) Battle does it with fine dramatic sense and doesn’t shirk the trills. In the Act 2 scene for Marie from Donizetti’s La fille du regiment, she decorates the cabaletta with different, but equally elaborate, variations as Sutherland in the classic 1968 Decca set (now on CD, 11/86). It is interesting to compare Battle in the Donizetti, the earliest music in the recital, as well as the latest, Manon and Louise, with the greatest of French sopranos, Ninon Vallin. In “Salut a la France”, Vallin sounds more authentically like a vivandiere, but she takes all the lower options, while Battle sails up to a high E flat without any strain. Vallin, though, makes a liaison with the consonant ending of “Salut-a la France”, where Battle doesn’t sound the ‘t’. As Manon, Vallin sounds much more tragic in “Adieu, notre petite table”, going even as far as a little sob. I doubt whether Battle has taken this role on stage; I suppose she might, but Louise would certainly not suit her, though she can certainly sing the high arched phrases in “Depuis le jour”. The most enjoyable items are the three lightest. Battle delivers Philine’s “Je suis Titania” with glitter and panache, not taking it too fast. It’s nice to hear the chorus in this and the other appropriate places. Hero’s aria from Beatrice et Benedict is one of those moments with which the right singer can steal the show, with its big tune that features in the overture. It would be a very starry cast that could withstand such singing. Offenbach’s Belle Lurette was his final opera comique, performed posthumously, in an edition completed by Delibes. The couplets “On s’amuse, on applaudit” were sung by Yvonne Printemps on the soundtrack of the 1949 Offenbach film La Valse de Paris. Battle doesn’t exactly eclipse the memory of Printemps, but she sings the little song with charm and pathos. In Ophelia’s Mad scene from Thomas’s Hamlet, there isn’t the weight of voice to suggest the full extent of the tragedy, and a comparison with Melba or even Sills or Anderson quickly shows what is missing. Nevertheless, this is a lovely voice and a delightful disc. The accompaniments under Myung-Whun Chung are fine; the sound is a little subdued.' -- Patrick O'Connor, Gramophone [7/1996]