Marianne Crebassa: Séguedilles

Record and Artist Details

Genre:

Opera

Label: Erato

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 74

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 9029 66768-9

9029 66768-9. Marianne Crebassa: Séguedilles

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Carmen, Movement: Carmen! sur tes pas Georges Bizet, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Carmen, Movement: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera) Georges Bizet, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
(La) Vida breve, Movement: Vivan los que ríen! Manuel de Falla, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Tenor
Don Quichotte, Movement: Dulcinée est certes jolie Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Don Quichotte, Movement: Alza...Quand la femme a vingt ans Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
(6) Canciones castellanas Jesús Guridi (Bidaola), Composer
Alphonse Cemin, Piano
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Nuit d'Espagne Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Thibaut Garcia, Guitar
Carmen, Movement: ~ Georges Bizet, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Tenor
(El) Desdichado Camille Saint-Saëns, Composer
Adriana Gonzales, Soprano
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Combat del Somni Federico Mompou, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Chants populaires, Movement: Chanson espagnole Maurice Ravel, Composer
Alphonse Cemin, Piano
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
(3) Mélodies, Movement: Séguidille Manuel de Falla, Composer
Alphonse Cemin, Piano
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
(La) Périchole, Movement: Le conquérant dir à la jeune indienne Jacques Offenbach, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Tenor
(La) Périchole, Movement: Vous a-t-on dit souvent (Seguidille) Jacques Offenbach, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Tenor
(L') Heure espagnole, Movement: Oh! la pitoyable aventure! Maurice Ravel, Composer
Ben Glassberg, Conductor
Marianne Crebassa, Mezzo soprano
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse

Marianne Crebassa’s ‘Séguedilles’ has its origins in family history. Her maternal grandparents, she tells us in a booklet note, were Spanish. The youngest in her family, she never knew them, though they have always lived for her in her mother’s stories and photograph albums. This album is consequently an exploration of her own dual heritage, its programme ‘a marriage of France and Spain, two interlinked cultures’, put together ‘with great fondness’ – and also, one might add, with remarkable intelligence and brilliance.

The influence of each country’s music and culture on the other’s is tellingly and insightfully examined through juxtaposition, contrast and shifting perspectives. Excerpts from five operas, four French, one Spanish, form the recital’s backbone, but whereas Bizet, Massenet, Offenbach and Ravel all view their Spanish heroines as self-assured and independent, Falla’s Salud (La vida breve – premiered in France, not in Spain) tragically defines her life in relation to the man who dominates it. The songs that thread their way through it, meanwhile, are fascinating. We find Saint-Saëns and Ravel setting texts in Spanish, while the ‘Séguedille’ from Falla’s 1908 Mélodies is in French, though stylistically this is very much the Seven Popular Spanish Songs in embryo. Debussy’s influence looms large over Jésus Guridi’s Canciones castellanas, while Mompou’s beautiful Combat del somni – written between 1942 and 1948 to surreal Catalan texts by Josep Janés and orchestrated in 1965 – reveals a debt to Fauré, Mompou’s great idol.

Crebassa is in tremendous voice throughout, her lower registers dark and burnished, her top notes warm, clear and effortless. The operatic heroines are immaculately characterised, so that with each we get a sense of the wider dramatic and narrative context of the work. So Carmen’s deep yet controlled sensuality, leaving Stanislas de Barbeyrac’s José sounding shell-shocked at the end of ‘Près des remparts de Séville’, offsets Dulcinée’s world-weary hauteur and ennui, while her Périchole, again with de Barbeyrac as Piquillo, suggests a brilliant woman living off her wits, in contrast to the wry humour of Ravel’s Concepción, giving into amused self-pity in a moment of sexual frustration. In ‘¡Vivan los que rien!’, her Salud is every bit as good as Victoria de los Ángeles and Teresa Berganza in their respective complete recordings, and someone should seriously think about giving us Crebassa’s Salud complete, as well. We could also, for that matter, do with her Carmen in its entirety.

The songs are wonderful, too, particularly the bravado of Falla’s ‘Séguedille’ and the sensuous if elusive mystery of Mompou’s cycle. Limitations of space, one suspects, mean we only get four of Guridi’s six Canciones and again you end up hankering for the rest. For Saint-Saëns’s Desdichado, a barbed reflection on male amatory discomfiture, she’s paired with soprano Adriana González, their voices blending wonderfully together. Crebassa’s collaborators are all, in fact, excellent here. De Barbeyrac is just as involved and committed as she is in their duets. Alphonse Cemin is her fine pianist in most of the songs, though Massenet’s ‘Nuit d’Espagne’ comes with its accompaniment handsomely arranged for guitarist Thibaut Garcia. The Toulouse chorus and orchestra under Ben Glassberg are similarly flawless and exciting over a wide stylistic range: there’s some really lovely playing here, beautifully textured. Outstanding, every single second of it.

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