Alpha is very proud to welcome this grande dame of lyric art. A great Mozartian, she also excels in Gluck, Berlioz and Offenbach and has sung with the greatest, from Claudio Abbado to Marc Minkowski or Frans Bru?ggen. Her rich discography features numerous repertoires but, up until now, it included only one recording of mélodies, whereas she is unanimously recognized as one of the world’s most eminent ambassadresses of the French art song. With her accomplice Susan Manoff, a connoisseur of vocal music and a tremendously sensitive pianist, she has assembled this programme devoted to songs she loves, mixing a few wellknown gems and others, quite rare, such as this superb Néère, from Reynaldo Hahn’s Muses latines. ----- REVIEW: Gens, as one might expect, is exceptional in this repertoire. Most of the songs are about erotic anticipation and tristesse, and her dark, slightly smoky tone adds to the sensuality of it all. She sings as much off the text as the line, but nothing is nudged or forced in an overtly interventionist way. ‘A Chloris’ is one of the best there is, and Hahn’s ‘Néère’, which gives the disc its title, leaves you open-mouthed with its beauty. – Gramophone
