• Ahead of his debut this summer at the Bayreuth festival, the American tenor and Wagnerian Michael Spyres has collaborated with Les Talens Lyriques, Le jeune choeur de Paris and conductor Christophe Rousset to explore Wagner’s early influences. In the Shadows (Erato) travels through Italian bel canto and French grand opera as well as German repertoire (Beethoven, Auber, Bellini, Weber, Marschner and more), all ideal for Spyres’s gleaming, high-octane voice. His exciting singing, with punchy, crisp playing from Les Talens Lyriques, hits you between the ears. These musicians can shift mood too: Suono funerea, from Meyerbeer’s Il crociato in Egitto – a Crusader rarity – is pensive and lyrical. Then we charge back up to sixth gear for the Wolf’s Glen scene in Weber’s Die Freischütz and the high-lying Spectacle affreux from Auber’s La muette de Portici. This satisfying album ends with early Wagner, from Die Feen, Rienzi and his artistic turning point, Lohengrin.
