What a luscious and luminous recital! Alto Marie-Nicole Lemieux's voice is lush and lovely with effortless skill combined with a full-bodied tone, and she's chosen repertoire for this program of mélodies that suits her wonderfully well. Some of the music is fairly familiar -- Debussy's Fétes Galantes II -- some of it is known only to French aficionados -- the chansons of Hahn and Chausson -- and some of it is frankly obscure -- Enescu's Sept chansons de Clément Marot -- but Lemieux sings all of it with such transparent ...
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What a luscious and luminous recital! Alto Marie-Nicole Lemieux's voice is lush and lovely with effortless skill combined with a full-bodied tone, and she's chosen repertoire for this program of mélodies that suits her wonderfully well. Some of the music is fairly familiar -- Debussy's Fétes Galantes II -- some of it is known only to French aficionados -- the chansons of Hahn and Chausson -- and some of it is frankly obscure -- Enescu's Sept chansons de Clément Marot -- but Lemieux sings all of it with such transparent technique, such translucent tone, and such transforming intensity that the final result is transporting. A cad might point out that Lemieux's diction is sometimes a tad opaque in Hahn's settings of Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Swing" or that her vibrato is perhaps a bit over wide for Debussy's setting of Paul Verlaine's The Faun, but only a rogue could resist her enormously passionate performance of Hahn's setting of Hugo's "Since I've Pressed My Lips." Pianist Daniel Blumenthal is at...
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