Virgin's investment in the French soprano continues with this new DVD of Massenet's steamy romantic opera Manon, filmed at the Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona, in June 2007. But as was the case with the CD of Italian arias, I find Dessay's voice entirely unsuited to the big nineteenth-century roles, so that despite her undoubted commitment to the performance, I find it difficult to be fully.
Massenet's opera, probably his best known, contains a remarkable portrait of Manon, as she grows from wide-eyed innocence to a guilty womanhood. There are some ambiguities in the character of Lescaut, her brother in the original novel, but now her cousin, combining in himself the character of guardian of the family honour, bragging soldier and loyal friend of des Grieux. In Paris Manon reads.
Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Massenet: Manon - Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Antonio Pappano on AllMusic - 2000.
All albums by Natalie Dessay available to download and stream in high quality.
Manon was one of Sills great roles. If you love Sills you will enjoy it. There is fun DVD with Natalie Dessay and Rolando Villazon. It is a David McVicar production on Virgin Classics. You can even hear a young Moffo with Gedda in another Met Broadcast. It was apparently not well received by public or critics but Manon has gone out of favor.
German tenor Jonas Kaufmann takes a similar approach. He pours himself into the role of the torn and romantic young Chevalier des Grieux -- a sort of Romeo with self-doubt -- and along the way, with a remarkable command of French language and musical idiom, delivers immensely stirring performances of two of the greatest tenor arias in the French repertoire. Both Dessay and Kaufmann.
Perhaps inevitably, Dessay began withdrawing from future engagements announcing that a run in October 2013 of Massenet’s Manon in Toulouse would be her final appearances in opera. Even before then, she had begun to regularly sing popular music with Michel Legrand and do song recitals, a format she had always previously disdained.
Artist In-Depth: Natalie Dessay Natalie Dessay is certainly one of the most important singers of the last several decades. While her voice does not appeal to all and her views about what opera is and should be are controversial, she has been an A-list singer for nearly two decades now due to her extraordinarily agile voice and her artistry, both within the song and on-stage. Born Nathalie.