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Rivales

Sandrine Piau (soprano), Véronique Gens (soprano), Le Concert de la Loge, Julien Chauvin

Rivales

Awards:

I don’t know about any rivalry here, but Gens and Piau, both of whom have complete mastery over this repertoire, function extremely well individually (as one might expect) and in duo. They are...

Rivales

Sandrine Piau (soprano), Véronique Gens (soprano), Le Concert de la Loge, Julien Chauvin

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Awards:

I don’t know about any rivalry here, but Gens and Piau, both of whom have complete mastery over this repertoire, function extremely well individually (as one might expect) and in duo. They are...

About

Sandrine Piau and Véronique Gens have a longstanding rapport and dreamed of making a recording together. Here they pay tribute to two singers who, like them, were born within a year of each other, Mme Dugazon (1755-1821) and Mme Saint-Huberty (1756-1812): both enjoyed triumphant careers in Paris, inspiring numerous librettists and composers. Gluck even nicknamed Saint-Huberty ‘Madamela- Ressource’, while ‘a Dugazon’ became a generic name for the roles of naïve girls in love, and later of comical mothers. Rivals? They very likely were, given the quarrelsome spirit of the operatic world of the time, even if they never crossed paths on stage. Intermingling airs and duets, Piau and Gens here play the heroines of Gluck, Grétry, Monsigny, J. C. Bach, Piccinni, Edelmann and Cherubini. Developed in collaboration with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, this programme on the cusp between Classicism and pre-Romanticism is very much the heart of the repertory championed by Julien Chauvin’s Le Concert de la Loge.

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Awards and reviews

Nov/Dec 2022

I don’t know about any rivalry here, but Gens and Piau, both of whom have complete mastery over this repertoire, function extremely well individually (as one might expect) and in duo. They are backed up by a fine and sensitive instrumental ensemble which outlines the highly dramatic content of these arias with a fine sense of the style and good sound that never overwhelms.

June 2022

Some CDs playing for around an hour can seem too long; this one has every sinew in the unsatiated listener inwardly yelling ‘encore, encore’.

April 2022

It seems there was little actual rivalry involved in the making of this delicious album: Gens and Piau audibly exult in one another's artistry, particularly in the synchronised fireworks of a duet from JC Bach's La Clemenza di Scipione. Chauvin galvanises some scintillating playing, particularly in the stormy Monsigny aria which opens proceedings.

29th December 2022

by turns exquisite and dazzling.
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