Here’s drama. A desperate mother hiding her son from ‘Greeks breathing slaughter’, a maiden in turmoil at having to commit a murder, the cry of Dido, the lament of Henry VIII’s first queen, temptation by the devil, escaping being devoured by a whale...

All right, so not all of those were in the arias for tragic heroines thrillingly performed by soprano Véronique Gens, conductor Christophe Rousset and his group Les Talens Lyriques. The last two come from Tintoretto’s astonishing paintings which dominate the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, probably the most remarkable room I’ve ever heard a concert in. It’s quite impossible to separate the musical drama from the epic hall, its surreal wood panelling, vast gilt ceilings, and those monumental Tintorettos: even the Baptism of Christ, flanking one side of the ensemble, has an atmosphere more akin to an apocalyptic episode than the descent of the Holy Spirit as a dove. Drama, everywhere. And these sumptuous surroundings seem fitting – after all, it’s a certain kind of high-born heroine we’re dealing with here. Gladiatorial gods, royal realpolitik – rather than, say, grinding poverty or failing crops - are tonight’s wellspring of anguish.

The programme is the third instalment of 'Tragédiennes', Rousset and Gens’s exploration of the tragic heroine through French opera, released on the Virgin Classics label. Volume one took us ‘from [French opera’s] creator Lully to its first reformer Gluck’, as Rousset puts it; the second ‘follows the thread from Rameau to Berlioz by way of Gluck and Cherubini’. In this third one – 'Tragédiennes 3: Les héroïnes romantiques' – Rousset takes us, via both rarities and repertoire staples, from the twilight of the French monarchy through the upheavals of the French 19th century, a century in which republics, empires and monarchies came, went, came back again...

The works begin with Gluck and end with Saint-Saëns, who died less than a century ago (and who, incidentally, produced an edition of Rameau’s works – thus the series comes full circle). Berlioz’s Les Troyens sits alongside the rarely explored works of Kreutzer and Mermet. There’s Verdi too, an aria from Don Carlos, in French, on appropriately chosen period instruments. Quite a historical sweep, one which traces evolving stylistic trends, as the approach to orchestration and vocal writing passes from Classicism into Romanticism. The change isn’t just compositional – wind instruments evolved so dramatically during this era that tonight’s players changed their instruments three times during the programme.

This is the most recent repertoire that Les Talens Lyriques, acclaimed for their rhythmically intense Baroque performances, have tackled in their 20-year history. According to Rousset this third disc actually began, like many a great endeavour, as ‘a joke’.

‘We’d done two volumes with Véronique, and we said if we do a third volume it would go to Verdi, and Saint-Saëns and Massenet. And it became reality. This repertoire is not her repertoire, and it’s not ours, and it was a challenge for everybody to do – but for our 20th anniversary it was a good challenge.’ So, I ask, will 'Tragédiennes' continue from here? ‘A fourth - why not?’ Rousset says. ‘We could have gone to Wagner as well, because he has written in French for Paris. That would be fun.’

This advocacy of all things French is the raison d'être, if you will, of both this series and indeed Les Talens Lyrique itself, founded, says Rousset, to ‘defend French music and Neapolitan music’. The French part of that mission is shared by one of the disc’s supporters, the Venice-based Centre de Musique Romantique Française. The organisation is housed a few minutes away from the Scuola in the Palazzetto Bru Zane – a beautifully-restored late-17th-century building with a chamber hall at its heart. Its aim is to research and champion 19th-century French music and to present it here and internationally. Projects range from major-label recordings such as this instalment of 'Tragédiennes', or the recent Guillaume Tell from Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia on EMI, to next year’s planned investigation of the music of Théodore Dubois, a composer of some 500 symphonies, concertos and operas – though little known.

But back to Berlioz, Méhul, Meyerbeer et al, and those monumental Tintorettos. Like Rousset and his ensemble, Gens seems undaunted in this unfamiliar territory: thrillingly alert to a character’s nuances of feeling and able to embody them in an instant, Gens can do steely pride in the face of a supernatural adversary, as well as lament, anger and drama.

Drama – that word again. But, both musically and architecturally, nothing else captures the essence of this event quite so well. So that little word will have to do.

Tragédiennes 3: Les héroïnes romantiques is released on Virgin Classics: Amazon