The Bulgarian mezzo’s first recital disc for BMG/RCA was devoted to French songs with orchestra and she sang Charlotte in the same company’s complete recording of Massenet’s Werther. Clearly the 19th­century French opera repertoire is a magnet for this hugely gifted young singer and in vocal terms alone‚ her plush­velvet‚ wide­ranging mezzo­soprano would seem ideally equipped for the great in­between roles‚ equally suitable for sopranos with good low notes or mezzos with easy tops‚ that proliferate among the works of Meyerbeer‚ Gounod‚ Thomas‚ Saint­Saëns and Lalo. Kasarova is certainly ambitious in the range of parts she tackles: from the post­Rossinian page­boys Urbain in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots and Stéphano in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette to the grandest of French heroines: Berlioz’s Didon‚ Saint­Saëns’ Dalila and Massenet’s Chimène. In the theatre‚ I suspect‚ she would be more effective in the page­boy roles and possibly Ambroise Thomas’s adorable Mignon‚ whose celebrated ‘Connais­tu le pays’ she sings with lush tone and considerable pathos. As Urbain‚ she displays her renowned bel canto technique in a rarity‚ a rondeau‚ ‘Non‚ vous n’avez jamais je gage’ (‘No‚ you have never heard such a thing‚ I bet’) which Meyerbeer composed expressly for the star contralto‚ Marietta Alboni‚ to fill out the page’s part. It’s a show­stopper in the glittering vein of Orsini’s Brindisi in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia and Kasarova dashes it off with effortless bravura. As she progresses to the roles either created for or inspired by Pauline Viardot territory – Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète‚ Gounod’s Sapho‚ Didon‚ Dalila – doubts begin to creep in‚ not because she lacks the vocal heft for these roles‚ but because her characterisations are barely distinguishable. And with the best will in the world‚ her singing of the French language leaves much to be desired‚ with muddy consonants and alien Eastern European vowels. For many‚ the sheer gorgeousness of the voice will be enough and Kasarova deserves praise for seeking out one or two rarities‚ the title track‚ ‘Nuit resplendissante’‚ from Gounod’s Cinq Mars (a flop at the Opéra­Comique in 1877) Sapho’s suicide and Margared’s big scene from Lalo’s wickedly neglected Le roi d’Ys. The French conductor Frédéric Chaslin coaxes stylishly Gallic accompaniments from the Munich orchestra‚ but I wish he had been tougher on Kasarova’s mauling of his native tongue.