CCMusic.com

The French tenor Julien Behr is one of today's rising vocal stars. Voted 'Revelation artiste lyrique de l'Adami' in 2009, he has become famous for his Mozart roles. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently wrote of his performance as 'lively, with a fine timbre', while Forumopera added: 'Julien Behr's Fenton is superb: though the French tenor has hitherto been especially appreciated as a Mozartian, here he confirms his aptitude for nineteenth-century repertory.' And it is the French Romantic repertory composed between 1800 and 1900 that the tenor has chosen for his first recital album. A wide variety of works make up this programme devised by the Palazzetto Bru Zane and Alexandre Dratwicki, who writes: "Nothing is more difficult for a tenor than "finding his voice" in this imbroglio of genres and institutions... Already much admired for his charismatic vocal style and personality, the tenor Julien Behr is now the hero of a recital that revisits this repertory in all it's variety, ranging from tenderness to heroism, from joy to melancholy." The programme features Ambroise Thomas, Bizet and his famous La Jolie Fille de Perth, Cinq-Mars by Gounod, Benjamin Godard, Andre Messager and his splendid Fortuni, Delibes and Le Chevalier Jean by Victorin Joncieres among others. French versions of two extremely well-known numbers by Franz Lehar from The Merry Widow and The Land of Smiles complete this panorama magnificently supported by the Orchestre de l'Opera National de Lyon and conducted by another rising star, Pierre Bleuse.