Search - Hector Berlioz, Jules Massenet, Spiritual Traditional :: Extase - Measha Brueggergosman

Excellent French Orchestral Songs from a Rising Canadian Sop

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 10/13/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I was very pleased with the earlier CD by the Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman; it was called 'So Much to Tell' and featured music by American composers, including a creditable 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915'. She was also featured on the Grammy-winning recording of William Bolcom's 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience.' This CD is all-French. The featured work here is Berlioz's 'Les Nuits d'Été' and Brueggergosman's performance faces stiff competition from the likes of Régine Crespin and Susan Graham, among many others. She does not have the last ounce of expressive ability that the above-mentioned singers do and I was just a bit disappointed in her 'Sur les Lagunes', as her way with that haunting descending passage, repeated at the end of each stanza, to the words 'Que mon sort est amer!/Ah! Sans amour, s'en aller sur la mer!' ('How bitter is my fate! Ah! Without love to set out on the sea!') lacks the requisite desperation. But her diction is fairly good and she has an exceedingly lovely voice which she handles beautifully. There is one other Berlioz item on the disc: 'Entre l'amour et le devoir' ('Between Love and Duty') from Benvenuto Cellini in which the opera's heroine, Teresa, sings of being torn between her love for the sculptor/goldsmith Cellini and for her disapproving father, the papal treasurer. Brueggergosman's silvery, forward-placed voice perfectly captures the innocence and passion of Teresa.



The rest of the disc is given over to music by Massenet, including the familiar 'Adieu notre petite table' from Manon (complete with its long recitative, tellingly sung by Brueggergosman) and 'Il est doux, il est bon' from Hérodiade. Brueggergosman beautifully limns the sad and agitated 'Pleurez, pleurez mes yeux' from Le Cid (which includes marvelous playing by the orchestra's unnamed principal clarinet). Whoever planned this CD made a wise choice by including several selections for orchestra alone, not only because it shows off the talents of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec under veteran conductor Yoav Talmi, but because it broke up the pattern of the CD, allowing one's ear to rest from constantly listening to a soprano voice, lovely though it be. The instrumental selections include the rapturous Prelude to Werther, with a beautifully hushed violin solo by Catherine Dallaire, and the equally rapt Entr'acte from Hérodiade.



The disc ends with two selections from Massenet's rarely heard 'La Vierge'. First is the orchestral 'Le dernier Sommeil de la Vierge' ('The Final Slumber of the Virgin') and then the aria that gives the CD its overall title 'Extase': 'L'Extase et la Vierge' sung with an appropriately ecstatic tone by Brueggergosman.



As lagniappe there is an unlisted track at the very end of the CD in which Brueggergosman sings, unaccompanied, a spiritual, one I'd never heard before; the beginning words are 'If anybody asks you where I'm going ...' A web search indicates this song is known as 'Goin' Up Yonder' and is associated with (and perhaps written) by American Idol winner Ruben Stoddard. It's a haunting song, that's for sure.



Texts of all the Berlioz and Massenet items are included, with English translations.



Scott Morrison"