Unlikely in theory, fruitful in practice: for the first time on CD, Eloquence presents a duet record of the Greek-born, French mezzo-soprano Irma Kolassi and French-Canadian tenor Raoul Jobin. Kolassi was no creature of the stage: her brief recording career centres around Decca recital albums which have also been newly remastered and reissued by Eloquence (4824637). Meanwhile Jobin was a well-loved fixture both at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and in front of the notoriously picky opera-going audience in Paris. Together they recorded the prime set-piece arias and duets from La damnation de Faust and Werther in London: a classic ‘Decca sound’ record from October 1954 supervised by Peter Andry and engineered by Kenneth Wilkinson. The previous year, John Culshaw had recorded Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in Paris, and the first two numbers from Act II are presented here. Jobin can now be appreciated as among the last of a great procession of Francophone tenors.
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