THE SONGBIRD: Annick Massis is one of the sopranos I most admire (hence, deserving of a YT thumbnail graphic template and playlist all her own). Massis was born to a musical household in 1958 in Paris. She got something of a late start on her singing studies and career, making her operatic debut in her early 30s in Toulouse. Massis gradually built an impressive performance and recording career in Europe and the U.S. singing florid baroque works, florid French lyric roles, and florid bel canto heroines.
THE MUSIC: Jules Massenet's "Manon" premiered in Paris in 1884 and soon became a world-wild success. The music and setting -- the French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille was based on the 1731 novel "L'histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut" by the Abbé Prévost -- make it arguably the quintessential French opera (Bizet's "Carmen" is set in Spain, Offenbach's "Les contes d'Hoffmann" is set in Germany to stories by a German writer, as is Gounod's "Faust." And, of course, Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette" is based on an English play of an Italian love story). “Manon” is one of my very favorite operas! Manon Lescaut, the impetuous, socially ambitious convent girl turned exquisitely glamorous courtesan and doomed lover, is a remarkable role for a lyric-coloratura soprano. Manon's pinnacle of glamour comes in Act 3's Cours-la-reine scene where her charisma is on full display in a two-part aria that begins with "Je marche sur tous les chemins." Her declamations of pride, beauty and caprice are conveyed with unusual rhythms and meter (switching between 12/8 and 9/8), unexpected orchestral effects, and an alluring suspended vocal line that ends on a sustained High D. This is a false ending as she immediately begins the famous Gavotte, "Obeissons quand leur voix appelle," an elegant dance -- and a surprisingly introspective aria in two verses that also ends on a High D.