Marion Les Roses-Songs & Psalms From France to the - Marions Les Roses - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

This recital by Jean-Francois Borras honours the fascinating history of the Opera de Monte-Carlo, the house that has performed more French repertoire than any other. Jean-Francois Borras, who received his initial training in the choir of the Monte-Carlo Cathedral and is an internationally-renowned ambassador of French vocal style, presents excerpts from works by Mascagni, Gunsbourg and Massenet that were composed for the Opera there. Raoul Gunsbourg was the director of the Opera de Monte Carlo (architect Charles Garnier) from 1893-1951 and the variety of his programming created the institution's exceptional renown. Borras sings arias from operas that he has performed on the stage of the Opera de Monte-Carlo, including Romeo et Juliette (Gounod), Manon, Herodiade, Werther (Massenet), Carmen (Bizet) and Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Offenbach), accompanied by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo under Pierre Dumoussaud, a young French conductor and specialist in operatic repertoire who is rapidly building an international career.

Marion Frère's Originelles is a true journey, where the cello travels across centuries and musical forms, guided by the inspiring voices of women composers-from Hildegard von Bingen to Marthe Bracquemond, with Rita Strohl and Marguerite Canal along the way. From solo cello to sextet, via a duo with piano, a dialogue with bass clarinet, and a string quartet, each musical world sparks the imagination. One of the album's original features is that it follows not a chronological path-from the 12th to the 21st century-but a sonic progression, moving from the most intimate to the collective. Colors, textures, scents, and sensations intertwine in this synesthetic journey where the invisible becomes music. A vibrant tribute to feminine creative power-discreet yet forceful, timeless and universal.

SOMM Recordings is honored to one of the last recordings made by the much-loved and admired soprano Sally Silver before her death at the age of 51 in 2018. Silver's third on SOMM, La vie d'une rose returns to the evocatively perfumed songs of Jules Massenet following 2015's well-received Les amoureuses sont des folles. Accompanied again by the renowned conductor- pianist Richard Bonynge - who also provides a moving, specially written tribute - she is joined by the mezzo-soprano Christine Tocci on six duets. The 25 (of Massenet's 285) mélodies heard here offer a marked contrast to the familiar image of the composer's famed operatic credentials. As Massenet expert Hervé Oléon says in his authoritative booklet notes InchMassenet, the song composer, was, in his own words, rather more at home in salons - this 'bourgeois artist at the fireside' as he liked to describe himselfInch. Embracing a multitude of emotions, sacred and profane, these songs employ wide-ranging forms and a broad musical palette to always captivating ends while also revealing a composer perpetually developing, keen to experiment and looking towards the future. La vie d'une rose is produced by the late soprano's husband Jeremy Silver (Director of the Opera School at the University of Cape Town) who also provides the translation of Hervé Oléon's booklet notes. Of Sally Silver's previous releases with SOMM, her first volume of Massenet songs, Les amoureuses sont des folles (SOMMCD 0151), received the coveted Orphée d'or from L'Académie du disque lyrique and was a Recording of the Month for MusicWeb International, who described it as InchA pure delight... [Silver and Bonynge] bring inspired, sympathetic, thoughtfully nuanced readings to these songsInch. Songs by William Vincent Wallace (SOMMCD 0131) was hailed by Classical Ear as InchA full of delightful discoveries distinguished by persuasive perfor