We first heard Marcelo Álvarez in London at the Royal Festival Hall‚ as Carlo in Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix‚ in a concert performance conducted by Mark Elder in 1997. He immediately impressed with his easy‚ fluid singing and engaging manner. At Covent Garden he was a promising Hoffmann‚ and more recently the Duke in Rigoletto. In this wide­ranging survey of arias from 19th­century operas in French‚ he is at his very best in two of the Donizetti items: ‘Seul sur la terre’ from Dom Sébastien and the better­known ‘Ange si pur’ from La favorite. In the first‚ he shapes the climax of the aria sensitively‚ as Sébastien bewails his fate in the ‘triste et sauvage’ place he finds himself in. The mood is similar‚ though the situation different‚ for the luckless Fernand‚ who regrets the memory of his beloved in La favorite. It is this early 19th­century repertory that suits Álvarez best. The recital opens with Werther’s Ossian song‚ but some effortful notes remind one that this calls for quite a heroic voice (the first Werther‚ Ernest Van Dyck‚ was a tenor with a repertory that included Tristan‚ Siegfried and Parsifal). Álvarez is better as Des Grieux in Manon‚ especially in the ‘dream’ aria. Again‚ it’s the arias from Les Huguenots and Don Carlos that come off better than the Gounod items. (Neither Faust not Roméo et Juliette was premièred at the Opéra­Comique as it states in the booklet – both started at the Théâtre Lyrique.) Mark Elder‚ as always‚ is the most sympathetic maestro‚ there is lovely playing from the Nice Philharmonic in the opening of Werther’s Act 1 ‘O natur’ and in the evocative prelude to the climax of the disc‚ the big scene for Arnold from Guillaume Tell. Álvarez refused this part early in his career‚ but now he seems ready for it; this is the most exciting thing on the recital‚ it would be a lucky management that could engage him for this role. There is no duplication of repertory between this CD and Robert Alagna’s Gramophone­Award winning French disc (EMI‚ 4/01)‚ but comparisons with Alagna in the complete Don Carlos (EMI‚ 10/96) and Manon (EMI‚ 10/00)‚ as well as with Vargas in Werther (RCA‚ 10/96 and 10/99) and La favorite (RCA‚ A/00) do not show Álvarez to advantage. I wish I could be a bit more enthusiastic about the CD as a whole‚ but it only goes to show that just because they are in French it doesn’t mean that these arias don’t call for different types of voices.