Rossini: Opera Arias & Duets (Live) Marie-Nicole Lemieux

• Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868):
• 1 L'Italiana in Algeri, Act 1: "Cruda sorte!" (Isabella) 04:38
• 2 Tancredi, Act 1: "Oh patria!... Tu che accendi questo core... Di tanti palpiti" (Tancredi) 08:55
• 3 Tancredi, Act 2: "Fiero incontro!... Lasciami - non t'ascolto" (Tancredi, Amenaïde) 10:54
• 4 La Pietra del Paragone, Act 1: "Quel dirmi, oh Dio!" (Clarice, Echo) 06:20
• 5 Semiramide, Act 2: "In sì barbara sciagura" (Arsace) 09:48
• 6 L'Italiana in Algeri, Act 2: "Amici, in ogni evento... Pensa alla patria" (Isabella) 08:34
• 7 Matilde di Shabran, Act 2: "Sazia tu fossi alfine... Ah! Perché, perché la morte" (Edoardo, Raimondo) 11:02
• 8 La gazza ladra, Act 2: "Deh, pensa che domani... E ben, per mia memoria" (Pippo, Ninetta) 09:49
• 9 Il barbiere di Siviglia, Act 1: "Una voce poco fa" (Rosina) 05:53
• 10 Duetto buffo di due gatti (Cat Duet) 03:39
• Total Runtime 01:19:32

Info for Rossini: Opera Arias & Duets (Live)

“Rossini has been a revelation for me,” says Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux. The first fruit of her exclusive Erato contract is this live recording from Montpellier of arias and duets from Tancredi, Semiramide, L’italiana in Algeri and other serious and comic operas by the composer. She is joined by soprano Patrizia Ciofi and conductor Enrique Mazzola, also her partners for a 2014 staging of Tancredi in Paris, which prompted La Croix to praise her as “a generous artist with a voice that is both ample and easily produced across its entire tessitura … from the depths to top notes that flash like a cavalier’s sabre.”

Marie-Nicole Lemieux triumphantly defies the frequent assertion that the contralto is a dying breed. Moreover, with this live recital of Rossini arias and duets, the Canadian singer proves that a deep, rich, voluminous female voice can move with the same dazzling agility as a light, bright soprano.

Since she first came to the world’s attention in 2000, when she won the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition for Opera in Brussels, Lemieux, who has been praised by Gramophone for her “velvet-like voice and generosity in phrasing and thought”, has established herself in a wide variety of operatic roles.

Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contralto
Patrizia Ciofi, soprano
Orchestre national de Montpellier Occitanie
Enrique Mazzola, conductor

Marie-Nicole Lemieux
It is no wonder that Marie-Nicole Lemieux shines today in the world of singing: the singer like the woman radiates an aura that belongs only to the greatest.

Her vocal talents were revealed to the public in 2000 when she won the Queen Fabiola and Lied Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium.

She then began an international career that has led her to the world’s most famous stages: La Scala, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, l’Opéra National de Paris, the Champs Elysées, the Capitole de Toulouse, la Monnaie in Brussels, the Staatsoper in Berlin, Munich and Vienna, Zurich Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Liceu of Barcelona, the Salzburg Festival, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Chorégies d’Orange, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, the Montreal Opera…

Her powerful voice, her superb sense of line and a faultless virtuosity as well as her sense of nuance and drama allows her to triumph in various repertories. The beginning of her career is marked by baroque music (Orphée by Gluck, Giulio Cesare, Ariodante, Orlando Furioso, Solomon, Theodora…). The evolution of her voice soon allowed her to take on the French repertoire of the XIXth century (Les Troyens, Pelléas et Mélisande, Samson et Dalila, Carmen…), Rossini (Guillaume Tell, Tancredi, L’Italiana in Algeri…) and also Verdi (Mrs. Quickly in Falstaff, Azucena in Trovatore, Ulrica of Ballo in Maschera…)

Alongside her stage career, Marie-Nicole Lemieux is invited to sing the great symphonic repertoire with prestigious orchestras (New York Philarmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France and Orchestre National de France, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre de l’Accademia Santa Cecilia, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonia, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Smphonique de Montréal, les Violons du Roy, Orchestre Métropolitain…), and under the direction of renown conductors such as: Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Ivan Fischer, Mikko Franck, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink, Paavo Järvi, Bernard Labadie, Louis Langrée, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, John Nelson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Antonio Pappano, Michel Plasson, Michael Schonwandt, Pinchas Steinberg, Pinchas Zukerman…

She is acclaimed as a peerless recital artist with an exceptional vocal palette having a special talent for French and Russian songs, as well as German lieder.

Her discography is rich and varied. In addition to her Vivaldi recordings for Naïve (Orlando Furioso– disc rewarded with a Victoire de la Musique in January 2005- Griselda, la Fida Ninfa, the Stabat mater, and the Nisi dominus…), Marie-Nicole Lemieux has recorded as a soloist Les Nuits d’Eté by Berlioz, Wagner’s Wesendoncklieder, Mahler’s Rückertlieder, L’Heure Exquise (French melodies with Daniel Blumenthal), a Lied by Schumann, Ne me refuse pas: with l’Orchestre National de France (which won her the international prize at the Academy Charles Cros and was acclaimed by international critics), Opera Arias (Gluck, Mozart, Haydn with Violons du Roy), Streams of Pleasure (Haendel in duet with Karina Gauvin) and Chansons perpétuelles (piano recital with Roger Vignoles).

Recently, she could be heard notably in Falstaff in London, Vienna, Paris, Milan, and Toronto, Il Trittico (Zia Principessa and Zita) at the Theater an der Wien, L’Italiana in Algeri (Isabella) and Trancredi at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Madama Butterfly (Suzuki) at Barcelona’s Liceu and at the Concertgebouw, Azucena (Trovatore) with Placido Domingo and Anna Netrebko in Salzbourg and with Roberto Alagna at the Chorégies Orange, Dalila at l’Opéra de Montréal, Ulrica (Un Ballo in Maschera) at la Monnaie in Brussels… In concert, she sang Verdi’s Requiem (Vienna’s Musikverein, Royal Festival Hall of London, Tonhalle in Zurich ans the Philharmonie de Paris), le Poème de l’amour de la Mer on tour with Santa Cecilia, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France… She has just been on a European tour with the pianist Roger Vignoles (Venice, Rome, Vienna, Zurich, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Madrid and Bilbao…).

Some of her future projects include Trovatore in Madrid, Falstaff at the Covent Garden and the Staatsoper in Vienna, Madama Butterfly in Orange, Enescu’s Œdipe at Covent Garden, Ballo in Maschera in Zurich, Carmen and Samson et Dalila in convert at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Jephta at the Opéra de Paris, Les Troyens (Cassandre) under the baton of John Nelson…

In concert, she will sing Poème de l’Amour et de la Mer in Cleveland under the direction of Antonio Pappano, Les nuits d’été with Yannick Nézet-Séguin…

Marie-Nicole Lemieux is a Knight of the National Order of Quebec and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of the Pleiade. She also has a Doctor Honoris Causa from the Université du Québec at Chicoutimi.

Booklet for Rossini: Opera Arias & Duets (Live)