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Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) LA VOIX HUMAINE
Monologue in one act on a libretto by Jean Cocteau
A production of the Théâtre Français de la Musique Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne Pierre Jourdan, director
Format: 4:3 English sub-titles Duration: 65 minutes
Cast: ANNE-SOPHIE SCHMIDT, soprano
ORCHESTRE OSTINATO Jean-Luc Tingaud, conductor
Francis
Poulenc's one-character opera La Voix humaine (1958), a setting of the
homonymous play by Jean Cocteau, explores the psychological
complexities of an unnamed woman as she experiences the end of a
romantic relationship. During the forty-minute work, she sings in a declamatory manner into a telephone, which serves as a sign of the
unrevealed man at the other end. Poulenc uses musical motives to
underscore the woman's changing emotional states as she recalls her past
relationship. The musical dramaturgy in this work resignifies
Debussy's impressionist symbolism by collapsing devices used in Pelléas
et Mélisande in a language that shifts between octatonicism, chromaticism, harmonic and melodic whole tone passages, and
diatonicism. This late work recontextualizes elements in Poulenc's
Dialogues des Carmélites (1953-56), and the end of the opera provides a
theme for his Sonate pour Clarinet et Piano(1962), as Poulenc reflects
on his youthful encounters with Cocteau, Erik Satie, and Les Six.
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