Pauline Viardot – concert by Aude Extrémo & Étienne Manchon

Aude Extrémo, mezzo-soprano Étienne Manchon, piano Concert programme Pauline VIARDOT: Mélodies (various works) Jules MASSENET: Marie-Magdeleine – Air de Meryem, “Ô mes sœurs” Christoph Willibald GLUCK: Orphée et Eurydice – Air d’Orphée, “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” Giacomo MEYERBEER: Le Prophète – Air de Fidès, “Ah ! mon fils” Camille SAINT-SAËNS: Samson et Dalila – Air de Dalila, “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” Few female figures were as important as Pauline Viardot in Romantic France: she was not only the most prominent mezzo-soprano (premiering works by Meyerbeer, Saint-Saëns and Gounod), but also a prolific, demanding composer in her own right. Like most women composers of her time, she had to confine herself mainly to the mélodie. But the variety of poems she set, the richness of her inspiration and her obvious technical mastery of the voice balanced the narrowness of the genre, rivalling, at tim