DESSAY, NATALIE

Papa do you hear me is onlosmakelijk met Barbra Streisand en de film Yentl verbonden, maar de Franse sopraan Natalie Dessay durft het aan dit nummer op haar nieuwe album op te nemen. Een verrassend album, want daarop niet de opera-aria’s waarmee zij wereldfaam verwierf, maar louter werk van componist en jazzpianist Michel Legrand. De meester is in een drietal nummers ook zelf te horen is, vandaar de toepasselijke titel Entre elle et lui. Prachtig is ook het duet met haar man Laurent Naouri en het zussenduet uit de film Les Demoiselles de Rochefort met Patricia Petibon. Soms wordt het allemaal wel erg zoet, maar de stem van Dessay tilt ook dit album moeiteloos boven de concurrentie uit.


Entre elle et lui - Natalie Dessay Sings Legrand

Chanson de Delphine (from the movie Les Demoiselles de Rochefort)
Le Cinéma
Chanson de Delphine à Lancien (from the movie Les Demoiselles de Rochefort)
Papa can you hear me? (from Yentl)
Recette pour un Cake d'Amour (from the movie Peau d'Âne)
La valse des lilas
Les moulins de mon coeur (from the movie The Thomas Crown Affair)
L'âme soeur à l'hameçon
What are you doing the rest of your life?
Chanson des jumelles (from the movie Les Demoiselles de Rochefort)
Le rouge et le noir
Conseil de la Fée Lilas (from the movie Peau d'Âne)
Duo de Guy et Geneviève (from the movie Les Parapluies de Cherbourg)
with Laurent Naouri (bass-baritone)
La chanson de Louba
La chanson
Paris Violon
The Summer Knows
Mon dernier concert
Natalie Dessay (soprano) & Catherine Michel (harp), Patricia Petibon (soprano)

After her triumphs in the world’s great opera houses, Natalie Dessay crosses over. A tribute to the legendary Michel Legrand who has scored some of the most famous musical soundtracks.

This autumn, starting in fine fashion with two concerts at Paris’ legendary ‘music hall’ the Olympia, she undertakes a tour of France with the celebrated composer and jazz pianist Michel Legrand.

Legrand trained at the Paris Conservatoire with no less a teacher than Nadia Boulanger and is known around the world for his haunting music for Jacques Demy’s 1964 film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), and for his work in Hollywood, which has brought him three Oscars: for his scores for the 1983 Barbra Streisand film Yentl and the 1971 film The Summer of’42, and for his song, ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’, from the 1968 Steve McQueen movie The Thomas Crown Affair.

Dessay first became aware of Legrand at the age of six or so, when she saw another film directed by Jacques Demy, the fairy tale Peau d’âne. “At the time, I would never have imagined singing with him. Now we are good friends and I am lucky enough to work with him on a regular basis ... I think Michel Legrand is a genius, just as Mozart was a genius. He is also a melodic virtuoso. You hear two notes and you know it’s one of his songs.” Dessay describes popular song as “an art that can demand great refinement. A song like Georges Brassens ‘Saturne’ has as much value, for me, as an opera by Bellini. In opera, you open up and let go. In a popular song, like when your singing German lieder or French art-song, you have to concentrate your voice – to learn to say a lot with less power, especially if you are using a microphone.”

The album that Dessay and Legrand have recorded together is Entre elle et lui (Between Her and Him). With a focus on voice, piano, bass and drums, it includes Legrand’s Oscar-winners, a duet from Les Parapluies de Cherbourg – which brings Dessay together with her husband, the bass-baritone Laurent Naouri, the Lilac Fairy’s song from Peau d’âne (as sung in the film by the enchanting Delphine Seyrig), and the sisters’ sassy duet from Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, performed in Jacques Demy’s film by Catherine Deneuve and her real-life sister Françoise Dorléac, but appropriated here (in this) album by Dessay and fellow soprano Patricia Petitbon. A further special guest on the album is the distinguished harpist Catherine Michel, who is also Michel Legrand’s wife.