Work: The Maid of Orleans: Joan's aria

As crowd-pulling operatic divas go, most of the attention goes to the sopranos. But a select number of mezzos have the same kind of following, and Latvia's Elina Garanča is high on that list. There are just a few roles where the mezzo is the main character of the opera (many of the others are "witches and bitches", as Garanča puts it), and the big one of those is Carmen.

Rimski-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Glinka, Tchaïkovski… Les jeunes artistes en résidence à l'Académie de l'Opéra ont offert à Paris des effluves printaniers venus de Russie, servant un répertoire de miniatures poétiques qui sont autant de gemmes.