Artist: Diana Damrau
Album: Meyerbeer – Grand Opera
Genre: Classical, Opera
Release Date: 2017
Audio Format:: FLAC (tracks) 24 bit, 96 kHz
Duration: 01:21:25
Total Tracks: 11
Total Size: 1,43 GB

Tracklist:

1-01. Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Le prophète: “Mon coeur s’élance et palpite” (04:03)
1-02. Charles Workman, Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Robert le Diable: “Robert, toi que j’aime” (05:52)
1-03. Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Alimelek: “Nur in der Dämm’rung Stille” (06:17)
1-04. Choeurs de l’Opéra National de Lyon, Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – L’Étoile du Nord: “Ah, mon Dieu !… C’est bien l’air que chaque matin” (06:57)
1-05. Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – L’africaine: “Là-bas, sous l’arbre noir… Fleurs nouvelles” (05:33)
1-06. Choeurs de l’Opéra National de Lyon, Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume, Laurent Naouri & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Il crociato in Egitto: “D’una madre disperata… Con qual gioia” (09:20)
1-07. Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Le pardon de Ploërmel: “Comme cette nuit est lente à se dissiper !… Ombre légère” (08:20)
1-08. Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume, Kate Aldrich & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Ein Feldlager in Schlesien: “Oh Schwester, find’ ich dich!… Lebe wohl, geliebte Schwester” (06:52)
1-09. Choeurs de l’Opéra National de Lyon, Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – Emma di Resburgo: “Sulla rupe triste, sola… Ah questo bacio” (06:39)
1-10. Choeurs de l’Opéra National de Lyon, Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume, Joanna Curelaru Kata, Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon, Pascale Obrecht & Pei min Yu – Les Huguenots: “Ô beau pays de la Touraine” (12:54)
1-11. Diana Damrau, Emmanuel Villaume, Kate Aldrich & Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lyon – L’africaine: “Anna, qu’entends-je ?… Adieu, mon doux rivage” (08:33)

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Giacomo Meyerbeer, the French composer with an Italian-German name (adopted) and a Jewish background, was the toast of Paris for much of the middle 19th century, the musical collaborator of the great Eugène Scribe, and the single person in whose hands the genre of grand opera most clearly took shape. His music fell out of fashion among the late Romantics, was further depressed by Nazi bans, and has taken a while to come back into style. This fine anthology by German soprano Diana Damrau will help his cause. Plainly a labor of love, the album includes arias in German (one very early) and Italian as well as French, and among the latter from opéras comiques as well as grand opera. Some of the music sounds like Rossini, some like Wagner (whom Meyerbeer backed early in his career and was repaid by an anti-Semitic campaign), but most of it has a distinctive voice marked above all by splendid vocal writing. The music often hangs in the soprano’s top register, and Damrau evokes how Meyerbeer’s audiences must have felt on the knife’s edge. There are examples of Meyerbeer’s masterful orchestration, such as the flute duo from L’étoile du Nord, and the support from the Orchestra and Chorus of the National Opera of Lyon is top-notch, as is Erato’s engineering. One gets the impression here that no expense was spared, rare enough in opera these days, and that the money was well spent. To hear it all tied together, sample “O beau pays de la Touraine”, with Damrau excelling in both the haunting middle section and the fireworks of the finale. Brava!