Magdalena Kozena "French Arias".(includes music by Auber, Gounod, Massenet, Berlioz, Ravel, Thomas, Boieldieu, Offenbach, Bizet, Verdi)(Sound Recording Review)

By Auber, Gounod, Massenet, Berlioz, Ravel, Thomas, Boieldieu, Offenbach, Bizet, Verdi. Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Choeur des Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski. Texts and translations. Deutsche Grammophon 474 214-2

Magdalena Kozena--the Czech mezzo who sounds a lot like a soprano, especially when she is singing soprano repertoire (Bach soprano arias, Handel cantatas for soprano, Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare)--may be trying to shed a prematurely applied "early-music singer" label with a recital of French arias by composers ranging from Boieldieu (1775-1834) to Ravel (1875-1937).

This lovely buffet, with rarities and even a world premiere (a little song, reconstructed from some sketches, for Nicklausse in the Olympia act of Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann), suffers only from occasional blandness of presentation. Various musical styles and techniques are represented, from the light and jaunty "Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle," from Gounod's Romeo et Juliette (in which Kozena gets the taunting tone of the adolescent Stephano just right), to the weighty and suicidal "O ma lyre immortelle," from the same composer's Sapho (where, unfortunately, Kozena cannot muster the required vocal and emotional heft).

The singer sounds disappointingly pale in the lyrical expanses of "Nuit resplendissante," from Gounod's Cinq-Mars, aiming for tranquility, conductor Marc Minkowski manages only ...