Скачать или смотреть Glass Shatterers! Elizabeth Vidal - Bizet: LA JOLIE FILLE DE PERTH, Ballade, Live 2000, High Fs

~The "Glass Shatterers!" series focuses on sopranos who sustain High F, or sing higher.

Elizabeth Vidal certainly qualifies for my "glass shatterer" series with a stratospheric range that she weaves into many of her operatic and recital programs. She appeared in several of my previous Aloysia Weber concert aria comparisons, but it is surely time for her to have a solo video, apropos as I shift my focus to French music for the soprano lèger colorature.

THE SONGBIRD: I discovered Vidal in 1994 when I purchased her first CD recital "Romances et Chants D'oiseaux" when it was released (it is exquisite and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!). Ms. Vidal was born in Nice in 1960. She entered École de Chant at the Paris Grand Opera and studied with Elisabeth Grümmer. In 1985, Vidal made her debut at the Opera Lyon and appeared at the Aix-en-Provence. She created a sensation in 1990 singing the demanding lead role in Auber's "Manon Lescaut" at the Opera-Comique in Paris and has since appeared in leading coloratura roles in many European opera houses and concert halls -- with a specialty for unearthing long-forgotten works from French composers (especially if they wrote something for a high soprano, of course, which they often did).

Here she sings Catherine's haunting ballade "Echo viens" from the end of Bizet's opera (she's gone bonkers -- is this the shortest "mad scene" ever written?), easily suspending two pianissimo High Fs. This is from a concert in Paris in 2000. She also included this in a studio recording of French opera arias on the Talent label, released in 2006.