(Photo credit: Julien Benhamou)

Let’s talk about chemistry. Cher and Sonny had it; so did Joey and Chandler. And, nowadays, the duo with the most chemistry in classical music is French-Italian mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and French lutenist Thomas Dunford (D+D for the fans). The concert was extremely solar, gleeful, and gay, reflecting their bright partnership. Their youthful joyfulness even brightened the more melancholic songs, but how often does a recital bring so much happiness?

I do not give a hoot about their personal lives—though it is evident that their friendship is a long one. What I do care about is the way that Desandre and Dunford create a performing universe where their personal and musical kinships are so well blended. Even the program—assembled in the vesper, given the last-minute absence of Huw Montague Rendall— was a show that only years of professional partnership could build. It was not at all a new repertoire, being but the track list of their new album “Idyll,” but the almost seamless order, the charisma made things worth it.

For those who have not listened to the album—or seen their concerts—, a D+D recital has more or less the same dynamic: they choose a broad topic (this time was “love,” another was chanson across the centuries, and another was Julie Andrews…) and prepare an expansive repertoire that accentuates Desandre’s beautiful voice and Dunford’s virtuosity and corgi-like perkiness—he often even barks when singing Lambert’s “Ma bergère est tendre et fidèle.”

But do not be misled, the congeniality of the duo masks the musical complexity behind the pieces. From Dunford’s improvised interludes to the eclecticism of the repertoire, there are no easy choices. How often would one place Satie’s “Gnossienne no. 1” played on the lute with Barbara’s “Dis, quand reviendras-tu?”!

The joyfulness of the concert was so overflowing that, in the more nocturnal and somber moments, it was impossible not to feel some apprehension that something might be lacking. For example, can one really follow Mélisande’s aria-ish “Mes longs cheveux” with Lambert’s “Ombre de mon amant”?  Debussy’s interrogative song seems to demand an answer that I am still unsure that anything but “Pélleas” or silence itself could address.

Yet, there is an inventiveness that one rarely finds elsewhere. The fact that the concert is accompanied by a lute instead of a piano, allows Desandre to sing pop songs easily, without the need for a microphone. Few singers can transit so well in such a heterodox repertoire. In fact, it is when recital programs move from Mozart to Broadway that my excitement sinks. Desandre is one of the few singers who can captivate your attention at all  moments, and as she moves, in a matter of minutes, from the dramatic and limpid cry importuning us to listen—“écoutez”—in Charpentier’s “Tristes Déserts” to her charmingly light rendering of Messager’s “J’ai deux amants.”

Nevertheless, given the gaiety of the night, the major musical souvenir might have been the charming version of Françoise Hardy’s “Les temps de l’amour.” The song was performed twice: once in the middle of the program, and a second time, as an encore with the audience. Dunford enjoys doing such tricks—once in Amsterdam, he compelled a grey-haired audience to sing “Blackbird” as if they were traveling back to their Beatlemania teenaged years. But here, in Aix, there was something more than a trick about it. Desandre danced, and her voice—so charming, so in tune—seemed to lead people to celebrate not only the recently deceased Hardy, but also the summer love of youth. Like the madeleine of Proust, Desandre+Dunford’s version of Hardy is an invitation to relive things past—that 1960s summer of love that even millennials had in other lives.