Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili's opulent voice saw her be offered the title role in Carmen at the age of 25, and then on to singing the awesomely challenging role of Amneris in Verdi's Aida with well-deserved success. The overwhelming intensity of her voice and the musical power she gives to her characters quickly propelled her into the great international venues. After a first album devoted to her favourite opera arias, here she is with a recital in five languages, Georgian, Italian, French, Russian and Spanish, and several composers that she serves to perfection: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Tosti, Duparc and Falla, to which she adds Sun of Haying Month (Mzeo Tibatvis), a very melancholy romance by a composer from her country, Otar Taktakishvili (1924-1989), which tells of a young girl who dies with her eyes wide open in a foreign land.
Accompanied on the piano by Vincenzo Scalera, the young singer has devised a programme made up of her very favourite works, excluding the German Lieder, the language of which she modestly admits she has not yet perfectly mastered. However, as Duparc's songs are similar to the German spirit of a Schumann or a Brahms, we can expect Anita Rachvelishvili sooner or later to tackle a repertoire where she will undoubtedly shine. For the time being, let's taste the heady perfumes of her timbre in this album whose sensual musical colours are further enhanced by the exuberance of a cover whose heavy shades of red speak of an orientalism of an almost erotic intensity. © François Hudry/Qobuz