It isn't fanciful to hear decided pre-echoes in Herminie of Cassandra's fateful, searing music (quite apart from the dry-run for the Symphoniefantastique's main motif). This extraordinary work of 1828, almost as arresting as its near-contemporary Cléopâtre, receives a grand rendering from Mireille Delunsch, who sings it in a compact, direct manner. Her tone is narrow and focused, her French diction clear.
Herreweghe and his orchestra adopt a lean sound, surely close to that of Berlioz's time.
Delunsch enters into the inner agony of the distraught, frustrated Herminie with a will.
Her interpretation is absorbing from start to finish.
The recording imparts a slight glare to her tone as it does to that of Balleys in the much more familiar Nuits d'été, but that's hardly enough to detract from an idiomatic, unfussy reading. Her voice doesn't luxuriate in the more sensual moments of the cycle as does Régine Crespin's in her famous version (currently unavailable on CD, listed 'In Brief') but it has a clarity of profile and a definition of phrase and, where strength of feeling is called for, Balleys provides it, as in 'Au cimetière' and 'Absence'. This makes a sensible pairing with the cantata. What may also influence your choice is, again, Herreweghe's lean, wellpointed support which often emphasises, rightly, the striking originality of Berlioz's scoring.