Marianne Crebassa – Séguedilles (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:38 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa has taken on sultrier tones, both vocally and visually, since her debut album of “pants”-role arias, Oh, Boy!, in 2016. Here, inspired by her own part-Spanish ancestry, she essays a set of Spanish and Spanish-influenced French orchestral and voice-and-piano songs. Not all of the selections are strictly the séguedilles promised in the title, but they all reflect the rhythms of the seguidilla folk dance or similar ones. Bizet is here, of course, but Crebassa wisely avoids full-on operatic interpretations of Carmen; her intention is to go more deeply into the emotional content of the Spanish style, often quietly melancholy and an over-the-top Carmen would have distracted from that. Some of the other selections are common enough recital pieces, but there are some impressive rarities as well. The song cycle Seis canciones castellanas by the Basque composer Jesús Guridi and the five-part Combat del somni of Mompou are rarely encountered. The Mompou cycle is something of a centerpiece, and Crebassa’s reading may well be a standard. She is in absolutely gorgeous voice here, and the material seems to have fired her to reach new heights. Crebassa gets able support from Ben Glassberg, leading the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, from pianist Alphonse Cemin, from vocal duet partners, and especially from guitarist Thibaut Garcia, but there is one star of the show here, and it is Crebassa herself.
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Marianne Crebassa – Oh, Boy! (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:36 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics
“One of the most important voices of our time,” is how the young French mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa is described by Marc Minkowski, the distinguished conductor for her debut album, Oh, Boy! Comprising arias for young male characters who are sung by a woman – the so-called ‘trouser roles’ – it offers an alluring programme of Mozart, Chabrier, Gluck, Gounod, Hahn, Massenet, Meyerbeer, Offenbach and Thomas. Crebassa – praised by Le Monde for her “incredibly beautiful timbre and transcendent presence” – shows why she has already made an impact at the Paris Opéra, La Scala, Milan, the Berlin Staatsoper and the Salzburg Festival.
When she sang at the Salzburg Festival in 2014, the Financial Times described Crebassa as “dazzling … with doe-eyed looks, the seductive innocence of Debussy’s Mélisande and a luscious voice that seems destined for Massenet’s Charlotte.” The New York Times has hailed her as “splendidly charismatic” and Die Welt has praised her “evenly produced, shimmering timbre”. Shortly after she graduated from the Conservatory of Montpellier, not far from her hometown of Béziers in southern France, Forum Opéra described her voice as “opulent and perfectly projected,” singling her out as “an artist we are sure to hear more about.”
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