Listening to the music composed for [Duprez] by a generation of French composers, you can understand the excitement he caused…this CD is more than musical archaeology. Spyres is a magnificent addition to that rare band of bel canto tenors who willingly sacrifice vocal heft for supple phrasing.

Spyres is magnificent throughout the disc…he delivers Cs, Ds and, in Le lac des fées, an astonishing top E flat with overwhelming power and confidence…Rizzi and the Hallé provide lively accompaniments, with some fine solos.

Musical history aside, these discs deserve a place on the shelves due to the extremely high quality of singing...notable highlights [are] the refulgent tone he pours into the Cellini aria, his savouring of text as well as notes in the final scene from Lucia...and his sheer fervour in Gaston's aria from Jérusalem...Rizzi conducts with a blend of security and stylistic authority, while the Hallé plays wonderfully for him.

Spyres is fearless in the high-lying parts written for Duprez...which sometimes venture above high C. This Spyres accomplishes with his deft voix mixte — a blend of chest and head voice — to thrilling, if not always beautiful, effect.

Spyres, with elegant support from the Hallé and Carlo Rizzi, demonstrates his ease in top notes, his fluency and his athletic flexibility.

Spyres’s voice is a cleaner, more straightforward sound. His French is impeccable, and he keeps his tone forward and bright, with a strong sense of propulsion and rhythmic vitality.