Although Heppner is often referred to as a Heldentenor – he has recorded glowing accounts of Walther von Stolzing (twice‚ for Sawallisch on EMI and Solti on Decca) and Lohengrin (Davis/RCA) – his essentially lyric voice has always struck me as something less than the truly heroic‚ baritonal German heavyweight required for such roles as Siegmund‚ Siegfried and Tristan. Yet his secure technique ensures that he can muster heroic accents when required – such as in the role of Aeneas‚ which he sang in the London Symphony Orchestra’s concerts and concurrent LSO Live recording of Les Troyens under Sir Colin Davis (8/01). So this album of French arias – his solo début recording for DG – may signal a change of direction in his career‚ away‚ at least temporarily‚ from the exhausting Wagner repertoire and towards the more lyrical French. If so‚ it’s a good choice‚ since the Canadian tenor’s timbre is notably un­Italianate and softer­grained than his older compatriot’s‚ Jon Vickers. Certainly the velvet­toned middle of Heppner’s voice and even its slightly nasal top suits a lot of the French repertoire he records here: four Berlioz protagonists‚ including that of the quasi­operatic ‘dramatic legend’ La damnation de Faust; Eléazar‚ the father of Halévy’s La Juive; two utterly contrasting Massenet parts – the shy‚ provincial Alfredo­Germont­like Jean Gaussin from Sapho‚ the swash­buckling titular hero of Le Cid – and the tenor leads from Meyerbeer’s three most famous and once popular operas: the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in L’Africaine‚ Raoul de Nangis in Les Huguenots and Jean de Leyde (Jan van Leyden)‚ the self­proclaimed Anabaptist ‘King’ of Le prophète. This is a varied and unhackneyed programme. Only Eléazar’s ‘Rachel‚ quand du seigneur’‚ Le Cid’s ‘O souverain‚ ô juge’‚ Vasco’s ‘O paradis’ and possibly Faust’s ‘Nature immense’ are what might be called French tenor war­horses and all four – not coincidentally – are common to Roberto Alagna’s Gramophone Award­winning EMI recital of French arias (4/01). The comparisons are interesting for although Heppner comes from a bi­lingual country his French is American­accented and nowhere near as idiomatic as that of the native Frenchman of Sicilian origin. But Heppner’s more robust technique and voice yield musical dividends‚ especially in the rapt legato lines of ‘O paradis’‚ the Canadian suggesting a sense of wonderment at the Portuguese explorer’s first encounter with the new world by purely vocal means alone. Heppner’s tone here and in the Massenet‚ Berlioz and Halévy arias is more contained and controlled than Alagna’s‚ and his high notes‚ though not ideally ‘open’‚ sound less forced‚ more easily produced and focussed. The singing is not all on the same exalted level as ‘O paradis’. In Aeneas’s ‘Inutiles regrets’‚ Heppner sounds less involved and apparently harder­pressed than on the complete LSO Live recording; studio conditions expose a slight beat in the upper register of the voice which may be due to tiredness because it is largely absent elsewhere. Few tenors of recent vintage have had the requisite heft and flexibility to encompass all of Berlioz’s tenor roles‚ however: it’s hard to imagine Vickers negotiating Benedict’s ‘Ah! Je vais aimer’ or Cellini’s ‘Seul pour lutter’ with such élan and vocal elegance as Heppner does here‚ or Gedda attempting Aeneas with such heroic bravura. Admittedly‚ both singers had more distinctive musical personalities‚ though. Heppner suffers from the Domingo failing of ‘sameness’‚ his Jean Gaussin sounding identical to his Cid‚ his Raoul barely distinguishable from his Prophète. But‚ again like Domingo‚ he is never less than satisfying vocally and musically. With Chung – an idiomatic champion of French music – and the LSO providing star quality accompaniments‚ DG has done its new acquisition proud‚ so I am sorry to have to complain again about the sequence of the programme. It’s in alphabetical order of composer‚ but placing Berlioz before Halévy and Meyerbeer does these composers few favours and makes nonsense of Hugh MacDonald’s readable‚ informative and scholarly note which attempts to place the arias in historical context and in relation to the great ‘premier ténors’ of the Paris opera companies – Nourrit‚ Duprez‚ Roger‚ de Reszke – for whom much of this music was written. And the decision to close the recital with Rouget de Lisle’s Marseillaise – albeit in Berlioz’s rousing arrangement – seems a desperate piece of commercialism in an otherwise non­populist selection.