Composer: Johann Christian Bach, Luigi Cherubini, Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac, Jean-Frédéric Edelmann, Christoph Willibald Gluck, André Ernest Modeste Gretry, Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, Louis-Luc Loiseau de Persuis, Antonio Sacchini
Performer: Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau
Orchestra: Le Concert de la Loge
Conductor: Julien Chauvin
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Alpha
Catalogue: ALPHA824
Release: 2022
Size: 1.05 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Monsigny: Où suis-je ?… (from La Belle Arsène)
02. Edelmann: Mais Thésée est absent… (from Ariane dans l’isle de Naxos)
03. Bach: Me infelice che intendo… (from La Clemenza di Scipione, Op. 14)
04. Gluck: Se mai senti spirarti sul volto (from La clemenza di Tito)
05. Gluck: Divinités du Styx (from Alceste)
06. Persuis: Ô divinité tutélaire… (from Fanny Morna, ou l’Écossaise)
07. Gretry: Dès notre enfance unis tous deux… (from L’Embarras des richesses)
08. Cherubini: Un moment à l’autel… (from Démophoon)
09. Sacchini: Barbare Amour, tyran des cœurs… (from Renaud)
10. Gretry: Cher objet de ma pensée… (from Aucassin et Nicolette, ou Les mœurs du bon vieux tems)
11. Dalayrac: Ciel protecteur des malheureux… (from Camille, ou Le souterrain)
Sandrine Piau and Véronique Gens have a longstanding rapport and dreamed of making a recording together. Here they pay tribute to two singers who, like them, were born within a year of each other, Mme Dugazon (1755-1821) and Mme Saint-Huberty (1756-1812): both enjoyed triumphant careers in Paris, inspiring numerous librettists and composers. Gluck even nicknamed Saint-Huberty “Madame-la-Ressource”, while “a Dugazon” became a generic name for the roles of naïve girls in love, and later of comical mothers.
Rivals? They very likely were, given the quarrelsome spirit of the operatic world of the time, even if they never crossed paths on stage. Intermingling airs and duets, Piau and Gens here play the heroines of Gluck, Grétry, Monsigny, J. C. Bach, Piccinni, Edelmann and Cherubini. Developed in collaboration with the Centre de Musique baroque de Versailles, this programme on the cusp between Classicism and pre-Romanticism is very much the heart of the repertory championed by Julien Chauvin’s Le Concert de la Loge.