Various Composers - French Soprano Opera Arias [Kanawa/Tate-Orchestra Of The Royal Opera House Covent Garden]
Kiri Te Kanawa has a very distinctive voice, you can tell it's her singing, although her voice sometimes gets in the way, maybe it's too distinctive!, sometimes you want to get into the character of the role, but her voice remains the same.
This recital of French Opera arias is special, i remember playing this disc extensively on a holiday in Cornwall, and i really got to deeply know some of these arias there, the booklet is nice, a lovely blue-tinged photo by David Scheinmann.
I love the Massenet aria from Le Cid, 'Pleurez pleurez mes yeux' [weep weep my eyes], the Heroine is Chimene, she is torn between her love for Rodrigo, and for her Father [whom Rodrigo has killed in a duel], she laments her deep sadness, the aria starts off with an introduction by the clarinet [0:00-0:44], very reminiscent of a Bellini aria, those smooth clarinet lines keep coming back later in the aria [1:18-1:38 etc], and are a wonderful feature that make this aria justly famous, there's a happier episode in the middle, where Chimene reminisces on earlier days, with a caress of the harp, and the clarinet as backing [3:16-3:59], and Chemine gets more passionate, and so do the strings, a lovely sad aria.
Here's Angela Gheorghiu singing this aria on YouTube.
