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7After Blanche, perhaps the most complex role is Mme Lidoine. It’s not flashy and it’s psychologically extremely complex. Portraying that is a challenge and it’s well met by Alexa Frankian. One thing the ladies all have in common is that while their music isn’t flashy it isn’t easy either and doing justice to it and to the character development is demanding. They all rise to it.
Another pivotal personage in this opera is Madame Lidoine, the New Prioress, here taken by budding spinto soprano Alexa Frankian. Lidoine arguably has the most beautiful music to sing, her last act aria, “Mes filles, voilà que s’achève” an absolute highlight. Frankian has the vocal chops to do it justice.
"Alexa Frankian makes the most of the Older Woman; who you can take as hilarious or rather pathetic as you choose. She manages both."
"It can’t be easy for a young artist to play an older woman, but Alexa Frankian was entirely convincing — and I mean that in a good way."
Dark, brooding texts, dark, brooding music and a dark, brooding voice with plenty of power. We have a mezzo here not a second soprano! That said, her high notes are all there and there seems to be plenty of power all through the registers, though to be fait I’ve only seen her once in a large hall and that was in operetta.
I was particularly thrilled to hear Christina Campsall in this kind of singing; she sounds noticeably different from even the last time I really heard her (in last season’s La belle Hélène). Her sound is focused and rich, and her top is really thrilling especially for a mezzo with a middle voice like hers.
Campsall has a rich, expressive mezzo voice with a clean soprano like upward extension which is pretty much ideal for this role (think Felicity Lott). She also showed herself most capable of effectively negotiating the emotional roller coaster. And that’s what it takes to pull this piece off.
