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A silvery sheen to “printemps” in Chausson’s “Le temps des lilas” gave a brief impression of dewy spring; there was grandeur in Donizetti’s “Depuis qu’une autre a su te plaire” without overkill.

As she began with a set of French songs by Duparc, Viardot, Chausson, Donizetti and Delibes, her high notes were thin and stiff.

Chausson, who also wrote the libretto, labored on it for almost a decade — not because he was stuck, but because he wanted to get it right.

In one letter Chausson wrote that the similarity of subject matter between his opera and “Tristan” — both concerning overpowering feelings of love that lead to betrayals of marriage and duty — would not matter to him if he “could only successfully de-Wagnerize myself.”

Chausson turned this sequence into a shimmering, harmonically lush double chorus, performed here by choristers in celestial white robes.