Vannina Santoni; Orchestre national de Lille/Jean-Marie Zeitouni – Par amour

Quebec conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni is putting out an impressive proposition with this album, released on the Alpha label and featuring a rising star of French opera singing, soprano Vannina Santoni.

Of Corsican and Russian descent, the Frenchwoman is above all a lyric soprano, with a powerful, sumptuous, and extremely malleable instrument. Par amour explores the feeling of love through several arias and scenes taken from French and Italian operas, in equal measure. And from one end of the album to the other, the charm is total. Santoni weaves poignant dramas in miniature for each of the pieces chosen. The great must-haves (Puccini’s O mio babbino caro, Catalani’s Ne andro), as well as the rarities (Se come voi piccina io fossi from Puccini’s Le Villi) or discoveries (an extract from Alfano’s La risurrezione), are carried off with divine grace, and above all a deeply natural dramatic embodiment. Ms Santoni’s phrasing flows with astonishing ease. 

The soprano excels in both the most assertive and the most subtle dynamic shifts. In this respect, be sure to listen carefully to Verdi’s Otello (Desdemona’s scene, Era più calmo… Ave Maria…), a passage rarely chosen in compilations, but which nevertheless has the potential to show a very wide range of emotions and technical mastery on the part of a performer. Here, Vannina Santoni delivers a definitive performance. We are drawn in by the tragic force, imbued with dignity and sobriety, that she infuses into this exceptional piece. 

My most pleasing discovery of the program is the “Mélodie populaire corse no.1 ‘’O Ciucciarella” by Henri Tomasi. A true marvel that reminds me of Canteloube’s Songs from Auvergne. One regret: there’s only one. We’d love to have the other five! That will be for a future album, perhaps.

Zeitouni conducts an Orchestre National de Lille that is warm, detailed, and symbiotic with the rich and varied characters drawn by Santoni. The subtle colours drawn from the Lille musicians are a credit to the Quebecois, who confirms his international stature. 

A masterly album.