Renée Fleming, Susan Graham to sample French songs at Disney Hall Dueling divas, yes, but has anyone ever heard of a diva duo? That rarity, delivered with a decidedly French accent, will be onstage Saturday at Walt Disney Concert Hall when soprano Renée Fleming and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham team for a recital of Belle Époque -era songs. As Graham quips, "With an intermission, that gets you four dresses instead of just two!" Since the late 1990s, Fleming and Graham have been familiar faces locally. Each has sung roles with Los Angeles Opera and performed in concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the two groups co-sponsoring the recital. The brief pairing repeats Wednesday at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, concluding with dates in Chicago, New York and Boston. During recent separate phone interviews, each expressed enthusiasm at the opportunity to explore French song. Renée Fleming You seem to seek out French opera to sing - why? After singing in English, it is definitely my favorite. For purely vocal reasons, I find the nasality of the language and the way it is really fluid are two things that blend themselves wonderfully well. Since the go-to romance language for most singers is Italian, how did you fall into French? For many, French is hard to learn, but only because it is so hard to pronounce. I learned French in high school, which was a definite help. Once you get past the long period of time it takes to learn how to sound authentic in French, then vocally, technically, it was easier. But that's just for me. Beyond the actual words, is it different singing in French versus Italian? It always depends on the context - language is only one of many elements we have to somehow coordinate. Singing is a very hard thing to grasp and learn. And that's what makes singing well so difficult - otherwise, everyone would do it. So no worries the first time you sang French opera in front of a French audience? [Laughs] You kidding? The first time I did it was quite terrifying. At that particular period, the start of my career [the mid- and late '90s], I had a lot of "What am I doing, how did I get here?" - singing Wagner at Bayreuth and bel canto in Italy. Because the demands were not just vocal and musical, but cultural. In terms of the challenge factor in France, "Manon" at the Paris Opera is one I remember. It's a huge role, quite long and requires a lot of stamina. And French audiences are most interested and particular in understanding you - it wasn't that every syllable had to be perfect, but they minded singers who were incoherent. Given the French flavor of this recital, what would be your intermission beverage of choice? Absinthe. Susan Graham What will people hear in this program? It is within the French Romantic period, music from Debussy, Fauré and others. Largely duets, though we each have a solo part where we chose our own music. It's definitely not two divas up there randomly strutting out their best stuff. We are trying hard to create an atmosphere taking us into the intimate setting of a salon, which is where these songs were composed for.