This CD gives further evidence (pace Andre Tubeuf on page 176) that, if opera and record companies would open their ears and eyes, they would find plenty of French singers to take part in French opera performances. Francoise Pollet, a name new to me, tells us as much, and—through her eclectic choice of repertoire—that there is a good deal of highly enjoyable music hidden away in works neglected or out of fashion. She brings her succulent, soft-grained voice and high intelligence to bear on rarities by Gounod, Saint-Saens and Massenet. Homesick Catherine of Aragon's longing for Spain, as expressed in her aria from Saint-Saens's Henry VIII, is a sinuous, flowing piece sung here with just the right elegiac feeling. Better still is Marie's cantilena from Gounod's Cinq Mars, with a libretto drawn from Albert de Vigny's novel of that name. It goes to prove that Gounod is the supreme melodist among composers of French romantic opera. This broadly conceived and subtly developed song makes one want to hear the rest of the piece, even if James Harding, in his biography of the composer, says the book is broken-backed.
The same composer's La reine de Saba (''The Queen of Sheba'') is somewhat more familiar from isolated arias recorded in the 78rpm era, each of which further demonstrates Gounod's gifts for maintaining melodic and harmonic invention of an appealing kind through a long piece. One of these, Balkis's aria. ''Plus grand dans son obscurite'', is included here where it is warmly sung, but with nothing like the assurance shown by Suzanne Brohly on a pre-1914 acoustic disc in my collection and with not quite the broad sweep Regine Crespin brought to it more recently (nla). Similarly, welcome as it is to hear again Brunehild's dawn greeting from Reyer's once immensely popular Sigurd, it calls for the Wagnerian breadth Germaine Lubin and even more the young Marjorie Lawrence (see JBS's review of her Preiser CD in the May issue) once brought to it, but then Pollet is miscast as a dramatic soprano. Fanny's moving words from Massenet's Sapho (not be confused with Gounod's Sappho) are quite touchingly sung by Pollet, but Suzanne Cesbron-Viseur (Crespin's teacher, incidentally), who must have often taken the part on stage, sings with deeper emotion, greater fidelity to Massenet's score and takes more care over words on EMI's ''The Record Of Singing'', Vol. 3 (nla).
Pollet's account of more familiar pieces is also variable. ''Sombre foret'' calls for a securer line than Pollet can provide; so does Rachel's lovely aria from La juive. She breaks the opening phrase of Elisabeth's aria from Don Carlos with a breath but otherwise sings it with genuine feeling for Verdian line. Still better is Dido's famous Adieu to which the warmth and vibrancy of Pollet's tone is well suited as it is to Chimene's ''Pleurez, pleurez mes yeux'', showing that the voice is really a Falcon. What is evident throughout, also in the conducting of Cyril Diedrich, is the thought behind all these readings. For those who have never encountered the rare items here and who want to know something about a whole period of French music that is too little explored, this Musifrance issue is a 'must'. The recording is satisfactory though a shade too reverberant.'