It is, suitably, with Salut a la France that Kathleen Battle opens her recital of some of the French arias that have most attracted leading sopranos down the generations. Donizettis salute in his first original opera written for the French was a pointed one, intended to secure their approval. It is sung by the spirited camp follower, or vivandiere, Marie, La Fille du regiment of his 1840 opera comique of that name, who is stirred into patriotic song on hearing the distant march of her soldier friends. French audiences duly responded with appreciation, and the aria has often attracted the rousing addition of La Marseillaise, even to Lily Pons waving a Croix de Lorraine flag at the Metropolitan Opera during the Second World War. Indeed, it became a patriotic song in its own right during the Second Empire. John Warrack