Roberto Alagna

This voice raised a dangerous exhilaration within me“... I must admit that Roberto Alagna's voice has always managed to touch me more than any other, ever since his (and my) debut at Montpellier several years ago (with his young and ardent Roberto Devereux). And along all these years, I have got his voice still in my ear, always distinctive, lyrical, stunning, with this real texture, full of poetry, passion, virility and foremost this clarity in a unique and typically French diction, I have always looked for by other singers but could not find.

More than one of his most idiomatic roles delighted me, in particular: Werther, Des Grieux , including Romeo and Faust, Don José , even more than his first Radames (in Copenhagen) or Alfredo, Duca (at La Scala) and Manrico (in Monte Carlo). I followed him a lot, because I have always loved his voice, a voice that I have always held as incomparable. This could look like a hero-worship, which is yet far from me. But I confess that remaining objective is for me harder with him than with others, which would however be incompatible with the profession of music journalist.

But, attending his Aeneas in the recent performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (on 30th March), I must say that, in my long life as a lyrical reviewer, I never heard anybody sing this role in a more convincing way than he does (maybe Gedda in the old recording of the RAI conducted by Prêtre, but live either Vickers nor Lakes, nor Dowd nor anyone else indeed) and I'm sure nobody, ever since the accomplished George Thill, is able to sing in French like Roberto Alagna.

Certainly, this role comes a little late for him, who gave it last year in a concert version for the first time in Marseille, perhaps not under the best auspices. This time, though a slight tightness in the top notes which cannot be denied, for the most part, he addressed the first performance in Berlin in an ever more powerful way, as if to emphasize the lyrical moments. But that's what I'm talking about: nobody sings these sentences such as "Inutiles regrets" or "Chère Didon " or especially " Nuit d'ivresse" (sung a little later side by side in a hanging ring), with so much tenderness and virility (once again) than he does. Nobody is able to derive and make understand the meaning of every single word with more expressiveness and impact than he, immersing the audience in the story, making Aeneas a majestic character. And nobody sings with a more powerful and inherently more lyrical voice than his. Successively, his Aeneas was a warrior and a lover, a huge friendly but torn hero, a man, a young man. I consider this performance as one of the most important and successful role in Roberto Alagna's operatic career.