The 23 composers represented on the program include Bizet, Franck, Chabrier, Debussy, Duparc, Ravel, Faur_ and Poulenc. Graham says that "It's a rich tapestry and it provides a delicious variety of romantic, saucy, lush, humorous and offbeat songs. I wasn't familiar with many of them before, including Faur_'s rarely heard
Vocalise-Etude, but I have truly fallen in love with each one. Some are heartbreaking, some are dramatic — almost operatic — in scope, like Bachelet's
Chre nuit. There are animal songs, nature songs, love songs, songs about love
manqu_, and some subtle French humor thrown in for fun."
Graham frequently sings French song, opera and operetta, and last fall completed an acclaimed run of performances in Gluck's Iphig_nie en Tauride at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
The three-week tour began on January 8 in Florida at Sarasota's Ringling Museum and also took in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Kansas City; Appleton, Wisconsin; Chicago; Boston; and Washington, DC.