What the present recording of the Chausson Poeme has in common with that by Jessye Norman (Erato/Warner Classics) is that both were made with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic—and that both, unfortunately, are presented without an English translation of the text. What basically distinguishes the performances is their approach to the question of how far Chausson was under Wagner's spell (it is significant, in view of a Parsifal-like passage in the final section, that he started work on the composition in the very year of Parsifal's first performance) or remained recognizably French. Norman, with Armin Jordan's full-blooded support, opted for the former view, with thrillingly voluptuous tone and splendidly firm line, if not always making the most of verbal nuances: Bardon asks for less luscious orchestral tone, and Alliot-Lugaz has an altogether lighter, more characteristically French voice: her first entry is far better judged in relation to the orchestral introduction and is, correctly, piano (which Norman certainly wasn't). She shines in the one joyous part (the start of ''La mort de l'amour'') of this otherwise melancholy work; on the other hand, she does not match Norman's bleak desolation at ''Comme des fronts de morts'', nor has she Norman's sheer opulence at climaxes like ''L'inexprimable horreur des amours trepasses''—though Norman spoils the sense of this by taking a breath before the last word.
Any singer tackling Berlioz's Nuits d'ete is up aginst two formidable obstacles—the classic Decca performance by Crespin (dating from 1964 but still superb, even if Ansermet was less than subtle in places), and the fact that no single artist is equally well suited to all the songs: dividing the cycle between two artists has much to commend it. Alliot-Lugaz's charmingly fresh voice makes a delight of ''Villanelle''; in the only other quick-moving song, ''L'ile inconnue'', ensemble with the orchestra is not ideal, and the violins needed to look at bar 21 again. All the rest of the cycle are taken a good deal faster than usual (''Le spectre de la rose'' is shorter by more than two minutes!), and despite the singer's intelligence, intensity of feeling and exemplary verbal clarity her tonal brightness fails to convey the songs' depths and atmosphere: reference to Crespin's velvety sound in, say, ''Le spectre de la rose'' or pathos in the last verse of ''Absence'' reveals how much more Berlioz's music contains and calls for.
The other disc opens up an area of the repertoire meagrely represented at present: more than half the present 18 vocal duets (which include songs en dialogue as well as those for two voices together) are new to the catalogue. The fact that Faure's Op. 10 songs and Gounod's Par une belle nuit were written for two sopranos scarcely matters with so expert and generally well-balanced an ensemble as this (which is aided throughout by an extremely alert, positive pianist). The two singers are at their best in purely lyrical items, displaying a beautiful calm line in Faure's tender Pleurs d'or (the gem of this disc), and Le Roux's opening of the Lalo song is bewitching. They are emotional in Poulenc's Colloque and treat Satie's cafe-chantant song with unusual seriousness and fervour; and their use of words in Massenet's Les fleurs is an object-lesson to all. Alliot-Lugaz adopts a strikingly effective tone-colour for the ghost in Le poete et le fantome—in which Le Roux is too loud (the recorded positioning in the disc is a bit variable)—but she doesn't always sound entirely at ease elsewhere, notably in quick passages in Tarentelle. It is interesting to compare the two settings, by Bizet and Duparc, of the same Theophile Gautier Oriental dialogue (Duparc's much the more urgent and dramatic), and there is a most uncharacteristic and lively Debussy duo looking over its shoulder at Delibes. The printed texts were obviously not collated with the recording, lines being omitted in more than one place; and since Gounod's Barcarola is performed in Italian and the Saint-Saens song in Spanish it seems perverse not to have shown what is actually sung.'