Lucky French television viewers in the 1960s, who were treated to concerts such as those featured on this DVD. Régine Crespin was an actress of great subtlety, and clearly understood exactly how to use face, eyes and hands for the camera. The photography is pretty basic. In the opening three Berlioz items, with the ORTF Philharmonie under Jean-Claude Hartemann, there are only two angles: first a wide-shot from above, showing the orchestra with Crespin at the conductor’s left, then a close-up of her face.

Crespin recorded ‘D’amour l’ardente flamme’ from La damnation de Faust several times, but it’s wonderful to be able to watch her negotiate this aria, the tessitura of which exactly suited her voice. In ‘Le spectre de la rose’ from Les nuits d’été, she uses that little husky catch at ‘vont jalouser’ that caused Ernest Ansermet such trouble when they recorded the entire cycle a couple of years before this. Then, in Dido’s ‘Adieu, fière cité’, we have a souvenir of Crespin in a role that she made very much her own, but which, alas, she never recorded complete.

The eight songs with Christian Ivaldi at the piano include two by Schubert, a composer totally absent, I think, from the rest of Crespin’s discography. Lachen und Weinen is a bit on the slow side, but Der Tod und das Mädchen is superb, with a really dark feeling to the end of it, and Crespin’s face fascinating to see. The filming here (from 1964) is even more basic, but in two songs with Janine Reiss, taped in 1972, the camera has been set free, and it wanders around, with Crespin at her most relaxed and playful in Ravel’s ‘Le paon’ and then, leaning against the piano, enjoying the sensuality of Brahms’s ‘Dein blaues Auge’.

Crespin had a wonderful sense of fun, which can be seen in Roussel’s ‘Coeur en péril’ and in ‘Les gars qui vont à la fête’ from Poulenc’s Chansons villageoises. Poulenc nicknamed her ‘Crespinette’, and she remained his ideal Mme Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites. Poulenc’s female interpreter par excellence, though, was Denise Duval, and the DVD offers as a ‘Bonus’ a wonderful chance to see Poulenc accompanying her in extracts from the three operas of his she created.

First comes a passage from Carmélites, ‘Oh! Mon père, cessons ce jeu, par pitié!’ – the last moments of the first scene, in which Blanche decides to take the veil. This is followed by a much longer extract from La voix humaine, which had been given its première just three months before this Salle Gaveau concert. Although Duval later filmed the entire opera (something which ought to come out on DVD), this extract with composer at the piano is a very important document. For some inexplicable reason, Poulenc’s publishers now discourage performances of the piano version of this opera, but it is just as valid a work, Poulenc worked very hard making the reduction, which in its way is just as fascinating as his orchestration.

It is the third item, though, that makes this a must for any admirer of Poulenc. Duval sings the scene from Act 1 of Les mamelles de Tirésias, and Poulenc accompanies her, while singing the role of Le Mari himself. This is sheer joy to watch, and confirms what a great artist Duval was, an actress and singer in the greatest tradition of the Paris theatre. It’s terribly frustrating that this ends abruptly as Duval stops singing, and we don’t get to see the final bow. From nearly two years later, evidently filmed in an apartment, are two songs from La courte paille, the song-cycle he composed for Duval, but which she never sang in public or recorded. ‘Les anges musiciens’ and ‘Quelle aventure!’ are charming, and confound those who claim that Duval did not like the songs. The quality of the film isso-so, but the sound is excellent; the personalities of the performers are incomparable.