CD Review: Vesselina Kasarova Sings Berlioz, Ravel, Chausson

This 1995 CD from the RCA Read Seal label contains 3 French song cycles (12 tracks) from the Romantic Period sung by the mezzo soprano Vesselina Kasarova with the orchestral accompaniment by Pinchas Steinberg and the ORF Symphonieorchester.

There are many ways of conveying expressions in song. When it comes to the French song cycles, though, the gold standard that new performances of them are compared to is inevitably the legendary rendition of the Berlioz Summer Nights cycle by Regine Créspin (click her name for a sample clip). What is so spectacular about this early recording of the Bulgarian mezzo-soprano, Vesselina Kasarova, to me, is in how she successfully defies expectations. Her tonal embodiment of these intensely expressive songs is so uniquely hers that it cannot be compared to anyone else's.... Considering how many excellent recordings of Les nuits d'été and Shéhérazade (Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer is a rather rarely performed work) there are on the market, that is a remarkable achievement in and of itself!

While Créspin's expressiveness is borne on her love for the texts of the poems the songs are based on (listening to her is like being hypnotized by the poetic language itself), Kasarova's mode of expression is nearly purely musical... with every shades of nuances being seemingly dictated by the melodic texture. And, to me, it is every bit as effective a way of approaching these tone poems. She shows rather than tells. And what is really a fascinating to hear, especially for non-native French speakers (or non-French speakers, for that matter), about her singing on this CD is how her imperfect French diction takes absolutely nothing away from her ability to convey every essence of both the poetic lyrics and the richly textured music. You don't even have to understand any French to know exactly what it is she is singing about.

Aside from the soulfully dark, sensual, and exotically melancholic texture of her voice and her perceptive nuances in dynamic shading of her line, there is this mesmerizingly detached quality to her singing that draws you in by its' sort of day-dreaming introspectiveness. She isn't trying to sell you anything... In fact, the gal seems so lost in her own thoughts and reminiscence that I feel almost guilty listening to these tracks.... It is as if I had sneaked up on her and am eavesdropping in on the private thoughts and musings that I have no business hearing in the first place... It is a most beautiful carrot on the stick that keeps unfailingly luring me back for re-listening!

Hector Berlioz: Les nuits d'été (Summer Nights)
1. Villanelle
2. Le Spectre de la rose (The Spectre of the Rose)
3. Sur les Lagunes (On the Lagoons)
4. Absence
5. Au Cimetière: (In the Cemetery)
6. L'Ile inconnue (The Unknown Isle)
Based on the poems of Théophile Gautier, this song cycle is comprised of melodic scenes that one can perhaps find wandering at night around the French towns and countryside during summer. Many different shades of wistfulness and a sense of unconsummated love. She is the childlike lover enthusiastically picking wild strawberries in late spring, the vivid presence of a spectral rose that lingers in aroma long after its demise, the longing soul hovering over the moonlit tombstones in a shady cemetery at night... and even a wisp of cool wind that carries many thoughts and dreams of love and belonging over the unknown sea.

Maurice Ravel: Shéhérazade
7. Asie (Asia)
8. La Flûte enchantée (The Enchanted Flute)
9. L'Indifferent (The Indifferent)
Based on Tristan Klingsor's poems, this set of 3 songs tells a coherent story. A dream (since Ravel never actually saw the Orient) of exotic Asia and the fetchingly elusive Asian sprite who entertains you with her enchanted flute and, annoyed by your inadequate reception, drifts off back into her own dream.

Ernest Chausson: Poème de l'amour et de la mer (Poem of Love and the Sea)
10. La Fleur des eaux (Water Flower)
11. Interlude
12. La Mort de l'amour (Love's Demise)
Set to poems of Maurice Bouchor, this set of 3 songs gives me the impression of hearing Mr Hyde sandwiched between two incarnations of Dr Jerkyll... Or as if one is zooming in over the waves at this lonely figure sitting pensively by the seaside. We get inside her head during the introspective interlude before zooming back out over the waves again, somewhat stung by the rejection, and leaving her once more to her own thoughts.

Click here to sample Kasarova's rendition of Ravel's l'indifferent.

Listening to her singing these song cycles is not like watching static paintings in a museum, but one actually becomes a part of the tableaux (thanks also in no small part to the superb orchestral accompaniment by Pinchas Steinberg and the ORF Symphonieorchester. They don't just accompany and highlight her, but also interact with her voice to give us listeners the impression of being a fly on the wall during a discussion among these 2 different voice in the same head!).

Recorded at the Great Hall of the Vienna Concert House in June 1994, the then 29 yrs old Kasarova possessed a rich clarinet-like voice of fine burgundy texture that is capable of taking on many different colors (though back then she kept her vocal registers quite well blended). It is a truly magnificent medium for the chromatically exotic tone poems of Berlioz, Ravel and Chausson. I don't care if you already have 10 recordings of the Berlioz and the Ravel cycles on your music shelves... This CD is a MUST BUY !

1 CD with note on the song cycles and lyrics in French and English translation.