LA VOIX HUMAINE - Seattle Opera

Nuccia Focile as Elle in La Voix Humaine, Cocteau Voices, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, (Tristram Kenton photo)
spotlight on
LA VOIX
HUMAINE
Music by Francis Poulenc
Libretto by Jean Cocteau
First performed Paris, 1959
In French with English Captions
At Seattle Opera May 2013
Production Sponsor ArtsFund
26 2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera

Long Story Short
A relationship of five years will end when this
phone call ends...so let’s keep talking.
Who’s Who?
Elle (“She”) is young, elegant, and unhappy
about being dumped.
On the phone with her is a man she calls “Chéri”
(the cherished one), as well as telephone
operators and miscellaneous other callers. She
speaks with Chéri about her friend Marthe and
the dog.
Where and When?
A woman’s bedroom, probably in Paris, midtwentieth
century.
What’s Going On?
He left her three nights ago, and tonight they’re
on the phone, trying to say goodbye. But how to
end it properly—particularly when it’s so hard to
get a good connection? The call keeps getting
dropped, random people keep eavesdropping on
the conversation, and the two of them have a
hard time telling one another the truth.
“Yes, I had a hard time sleeping last night, and
took a pill,” she tells him. “Then, this morning,
Marthe came by early.” She goes on to lie about
what she’s wearing, and they are almost flirting
when once again the line cuts out. She calls his
house, only to discover that he’s not there—he
must have been calling from somewhere else.
When he calls back, and continues to lie—“Oh,
that music you hear? No, I’m not at a party...
that must be the neighbors, playing their
gramophone”—she is emboldened to tell him
the truth: she isn’t dressed up, she hasn’t had
dinner, and she didn’t take one pill, she took
all of them. When Marthe came, she brought a
doctor, and the woman’s suicide attempt failed.
But after five years of a relationship, it’s terrible
to be alone; even the woman’s dog understands
something is terribly wrong. When she comes to
understand that her lover has lied to her only in
an attempt to lessen the hurt, his kindness gives
her the strength to tell him, “Go ahead, hurry,
hang up. Do it quickly. I love you....”
History of a Bad Connection
If you’ve had trouble with your cell phone carrier,
or an unreliable wireless router, you’ll identify
with the protagonist of La voix humaine, whose
attempt to make an important phone call is
continually thwarted by the crummy phone
service where she lives. Much of the dramatic
tension and humor of La voix humaine come
from the constant interruptions, which were a
familiar feature of urban telephone systems into
the mid-twentieth century.
This opera takes place long before area codes,
back in the days of exchange names; for instance,
Elle, trying to dial her Chéri, asks her operator
to dial “Auteuil 04/7.” Not until after World War
II did modern telephone numbering systems
come into use, and it took decades for them to
become ubiquitous. Although Poulenc wrote the
opera in the late ’50s, he was clearly delighted
to remember the unpredictable phone service of
his youth—witness the rattling xylophone in his
score each time the woman’s telephone rings.
About the Writer and
CoMPoser
La voix humaine is a play written in 1930 by
Jean Cocteau and set to music in 1959 by Francis
Poulenc. Cocteau and Poulenc, who first met in
1917, were both major figures
in twentieth-century art, music,
poetry, theater, dance, and film.
Given their varied interests,
limitless energy, and the
extraordinary times they lived
through, the world of French
culture swirled around these
two figures for four decades.
When they first met, Cocteau
(born 1889) was a hyperactive
young artist and arts publicist,
and Poulenc (born 1899) was
a musically inclined teenager
from a well-to-do family. The
Rite of Spring had turned the
Paris arts scene on its head a
few years previously: Stravinsky’s
wild score so polarized
the musical world that when
Poulenc applied to study at the conservative
Paris Conservatoire, the composition teacher
who judged his work screamed, “I see you’re a
follower of the Stravinsky and Satie gang. Well,
goodbye!” and threw him out the door. The
hedonistic lifestyle associated with the Ballets
Russes, and others in the world of the arts at
the time of the World War I, emboldened these
two artists, both of whom were gay, to pursue
authentic love lives, whatever society might
think. Both had on-again-off-again relationships
with the Catholic Church; both endured
the Fascist take-over of France during World
War II (and both have been criticized for not
standing up heroically to fight the Nazis); and
both died in 1963, well-respected old lions who
had become role models to later generations of
artists.
Cocteau may be best known in the United
States today for his films, particularly his dreamy
Beauty and the Beast and his three Orpheusinspired
films: Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, and The
Testament of Orpheus (all of which star his lover,
Jean Marais). But he was equally productive as
artist, poet, novelist, critic, and designer. He
wrote La voix humaine in 1929, the same year
that he described his recovery from addiction
in the book Opium, Diary of a Detoxification.
“Portrait of Jean Cocteau (with multiple hands),” Philippe Halsman, 1948
2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera 27

Aria Ready?
Nuccia Focile, Elle
A woman is trying to stay connected
to her lover on the telephone.
Ron Scherl photo
Tristram Kenton photo
Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites at Seattle Opera in 1990
La voix humaine was written partly in response lotine, Dialogues was a big hit at its 1957 La
to a complaint from an actress that his scripts Scala premiere, and was quickly performed by
were so pre-determined by writer and director opera companies in London, Paris, Vienna, and
there wasn’t much in them for actors to do. La San Francisco. Seattle Opera first produced it in
voix humaine continues to be produced as a play 1990. Poulenc wrote La voix humaine immediately
following Dialogues, for the soprano Denise
all over the world.
Duval. Cocteau’s play provided suitable inspiration
for a witty man who loved dogs and had
Poulenc may not have broken as much new
ground as some twentieth-century composers of
a history of unstable relationships and abusing
classical music, but audiences have always taken
sleeping pills.
to his work. He expressed in music both the
smiling, eager-to-please side of his personality,
Donna Abbandonata
and also his deep insecurities: his hypochondria,
need for love, and quest for faith. A prolific
La voix humaine is technically a “monodrama,”
composer of songs, he also wrote much religious
an opera for only one character. Another such
music, some popular chamber music, but no
piece, Schoenberg’s Erwartung, was produced in
symphonies—although orchestras sometimes
2009 at Seattle Opera. Like Erwartung, La voix
play the suites made from his ballets Les Biches
humaine is a tour-de-force for a solo soprano,
and Les Animaux modèles, concertos, and other
whose character must come to terms with the
works. The BBC commissioned his History of
end of a relationship.
Babar the Elephant for piano and narrator, a It turns out that this kind of piece has a long and
typically crowd-pleasing collection of vignettes proud tradition going back to the earliest days of
based on a children’s book.
opera. In fact, one of opera’s very first subjects,
Poulenc wrote three operas. Les Mamelles de
set by Monteverdi, was Ariadne abandoned by
Tirésias is a gender-bending comedy based on
Theseus on the island of Naxos. Other abandoned
a surreal text by Guillaume Apollinaire, another
heroines who have inspired opera composers for
colorful character whom Poulenc had known
centuries include Virgil’s Dido and Tasso’s Armida.
briefly during World War I. Poulenc’s masterpiece,
Dialogues of the Carmelites, was written island, the woman in La voix humaine may
Unlike Ariadne, marooned on her desert
in the 1950s. The story of a timid French girl be abandoned, but she’s hardly alone, given
who, during the French Revolution, overcomes all the people chattering away on her telephone
her fear of death and goes boldly to the guil- line.
SO: You are the only person onstage
during this opera, so you are, in a
sense, singing one long aria. What
is challenging about being onstage
by yourself for 40 minutes?
NF: You really have to carry the whole show
on your shoulders. The entire story is
based around this telephone, which
connects this woman to everybody else
involved in the story. I have to act my
role, but I also have to act everybody
else because the only way for the
audience to understand and imagine
what the other person is saying to me
is through the expression on my face.
The voice is really dictating everything,
which is why there must be such a big
understanding between the conductor,
the director, and the singer. Sometimes,
for example, the music cannot start until
I do a particular movement or reaction,
and that reaction happens in the silence.
It doesn’t always take the same amount
of time. Evenings can be shorter, some
can be longer. I have to find courage
to sustain those moments of silence. It
really is more like a play than an opera.
SO: Have you actually scripted what the
people on the other line are saying?
NF: I have my phrases in my mind, so I know
exactly how to react to it.
SO: Have you performed this role before?
NF: I performed this role last year in Covent
Garden in London in English. In Seattle,
we will do it in French, so in a way it will
be like doing it for the first time. When
you sing it in French, it becomes more
elegant, lighter. The language and the
music are so perfect together.
2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera 29

30 2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera
Teatro Massimo, Palermo

Aria Ready?
spotlight on
SUOR
ANGELICA
Maria Gavrilova, Angelica
“Senza mamma”
Angelica reacts to the news of
her son’s death.
Long Story Short
After sin comes penitence and forgiveness for a
loving mother.
Who’s Who?
Sister Angelica, who knows the powers of
every herb in the convent’s garden, has been a
nun for seven years—but has yet to find peace.
The Princess, her wealthy aunt, likes to
appear pious and noble, although really she is
manipulative and cruel.
Sister Genovieffa, who used to be a shepherdess,
misses her darling little lambs.
Sister Dolcina (“Sweet-Tooth”) likes to
commit the sin of gluttony.
The Abbess is trying to run a serious convent;
no “Nunsense” here.
Where and When?
A convent in northern Italy, late seventeenth
century.
What’s Going On?
For seven years Sister Angelica has led the quiet
life of a nun. Not much happens at her convent:
every so often special treats, such as currants,
Music by Giacomo Puccini
Libretto by Giovacchino FoRZano
First performed New YoRK City, 1919
In Italian with English Captions
At Seattle Opera May 2013
Production Sponsor ArtsFund
come in with the donations of food; and once
a year the sunlight through a certain window
strikes the fountain and turns the water golden.
The nuns follow a strict rule, and spend most of
their time in prayer. And none of the other nuns
really understands why Angelica is there.
Born a princess, Angelica was forced to become
a nun when she bore a child out of wedlock. The
opera takes place the day Angelica finally receives
a visit: it is her aunt, who needs her to sign
some family documents. Angelica’s little sister
will marry, the aunt explains; they have found
a man who agrees to look past the shameful
stain Angelica left on their once-glorious family
name. But first Angelica must sign away her
inheritance. Angelica is more interested in what
became of her baby. “Two years ago he took
sick,” her aunt responds. “Everything was done
to save him, but....”
Angelica signs her aunt’s document, and the old
woman leaves her alone. Desiring more than
anything to be with her son, she collects herbs
from the convent garden, prepares poison, and
drinks it. Suddenly realizing that in her desperate
love she has committed a mortal sin, Angelica
prays to the Virgin Mary, imploring salvation,
and as she dies, she receives a sign of grace—a
vision of her dead son.
SO: Does your character change as she
sings this aria?
MG: Angelica starts the aria with sadness
for both her child and herself, that they
never knew each other’s love. At first
she is sad (the aria begins in A Minor),
imagining him dying alone and unloved.
She then thinks that he is happy in
heaven (changing to F Major), and
thinks how happy she will be when they
are together in heaven.
SO: Do you remember the first time you
heard this aria?
MG: Yes, when I was a student in Moscow
Conservatory, I heard Mirella Freni sing
it on an EMI aria recording from the
1960s. The performance I like the best
is a video from La Scala with Rosalind
Plowright. With both singers, I was
impressed by how they used their voices
in such a difficult aria with feeling.
SO: What do you like most about
singing this aria?
MG: Angelica is a combination of sweetness
and power.
SO: What’s most challenging about it?
MG: The pianissimi high notes in the aria are
challenging and even more so at the
end in the prayer that follows the aria.
SO: After “Senza mamma,” you’re still
the only one onstage. How is the
rest of the opera different from the
part that’s technically considered
the aria?
MG: After the aria, Suor Angelica loses her
rational mind and is in ecstasy thinking
about her son and herself in heaven.
This music, not only the singing, but the
orchestra too, is what we think of as
real Puccini.
2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera 31

Puccini Seeks
New Adventures
After the success of La bohème, Puccini was
on top of the world. But by the time he wrote
Madama Butterfly, eight years later, the musical
intelligentsia, particularly hungry for novelty
in those watershed days of “modern” music,
were accusing him of resting on his laurels and
repeating past successes. (It’s true that Butterfly
first steps onstage to a slowed-down version of
Musetta’s Waltz!) So following Butterfly, Puccini
was indeed on the lookout for projects that
would stretch him in new directions.
In 1907, he was invited to New York to supervise
performances of his operas at the Metropolitan
Opera. Puccini ended up writing an opera for
the Metropolitan: La fanciulla del West, a very
American story about a plucky, can-do barmaid
in a California mining town. During World War I,
Puccini tried his hand at writing a Viennese-style
operetta, La rondine, which premiered in Monte
Carlo. And as the war ended, he put together Il
trittico, a series of three one-act operas which
also premiered at the Metropolitan. Together they
form an almost Dantesque progression through
hell, purgatory, and paradise; but because they
make vast demands on an opera company, it’s
rare nowadays to see all three on the same
evening. Il tabarro is a gritty story of jealousy
and murder among low-lifes, set on a barge on
the Seine; Suor Angelica, one of the few operas
to feature an all-female cast, contains some
of Puccini’s most breathtaking, and certainly
his most mystical, music; and Gianni Schicchi,
his only comedy, rounds out this magnificent
triptych with laughter and love.
Puccini and His
Suffering Women
In Act III of Manon Lescaut, Puccini’s first operatic
triumph, a parade of “undesirable women” (i.e.,
prostitutes) are brought onstage one by one,
publically humiliated by having their hair cut
off, and then forced to board a ship headed for
the new world—deported for their sins. In a way,
this scene foreshadowed what Puccini was to do
for the rest of his career. In opera after opera,
he makes his audience cry by showing them the
pathetic suffering of a beautiful woman whose
only crime is love. In La bohème, Mimì dies of
Top: In Madama Butterfly, Cio-Cio-San kills herself when Kate Pinkerton asks her to give up her child. Bottom:
In Turandot, Liù kills herself so Turandot will give Calaf her love.
tuberculosis, a disease associated with sinful
lifestyles in the nineteenth-century imagination.
Puccini heroines who kill themselves after
psychological torture—and losing whomever they
most love— include Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Suor
Angelica, and Liù. Puccini was well aware of the
sadistic streak to his creativity, and even made his
peace with it. As he died of throat cancer, Puccini
joked that the seven radium crystals inserted into
his neck were the revenge of the seven sopranos
who die in his operas.
But it’s an oversimplification to think that all
Puccini heroines are pathetic victims who endure
heartless cruelty and then kill themselves. There’s
another kind of woman in Puccini’s operas, an
assertive, powerful goddess who knows what
she wants and goes after it. She may be sympathetic,
like Musetta in La bohème or Minnie in
La fanciulla del West, or not, like the Princess in
Suor Angelica; but she always stands tall among
all the strong women you’re likely to encounter
on the opera stage. Turandot, Puccini’s final
masterpiece, features both archetypes in its
fearsome princess and suicidal slave girl.
These two characters are eerily reminiscent of
two real women in Puccini’s life. An avid sports
car enthusiast, Puccini was in a car accident in
1903. He hired a live-in nurse to help him regain
Seattle Opera, 2012, (Elise Bakketun photo)
Turandot, Pittsburgh Opera, 2011 (David Bachman photo)
32 2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera

his health, and kept her on as a maid when he
recovered. The girl’s name was Doria Manfredi;
she belonged to a respectable family in their
village of Torre del Lago and by all accounts was
a hard worker and a gentle, pleasant person.
In 1904, Elvira Gemingani’s husband died and
she was finally free to marry Puccini (for more
context see page 46). No sooner had she married
him than she became jealous and possessive. She
grew suspicious of her husband with Doria, their
pretty maid. One evening in the autumn of 1908
Elvira found the two of them talking near the
garden. She accused Doria of having an affair
with her husband, fired her, slandered her in the
town, and urged the priest to excommunicate
her. Puccini was a well-known womanizer, and
many citizens of Torre del Lago believed Elvira.
Poor Doria, unable to endure the suspicion and
scandal, took poison and died.
Doria’s family had an autopsy performed, and it
was determined that the girl had died a virgin.
They took Elvira Puccini to court for defamation
of character and won the case. Elvira would have
had to spend five months in prison,
had Puccini not paid off the family.
Although at first he wanted a separation,
eventually the composer
was reconciled with his wife.
Years later, Puccini wrote a friend, “Always before
my eyes I have the image of that poor victim
and her suffering at the hands of a powerful
woman.” And years after that, he dramatized this
encounter, between Liù and Turandot, between
Suor Angelica and her aunt. When Puccini
played the score of Suor Angelica for his sister
Iginia, who was a nun, she and her fellow sisters,
in tears, offered absolution to Puccini’s fictional,
sinful, loving, suffering Angelica.
Speight Jenkins Introduces
The Artists of La Voix Humaine
and Suor Angelica
Elle:
Nuccia Focile
Soprano (Militello, Sicily)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Violetta, La traviata (’09)
One of the world’s best
loved sopranos, Ms.
Focile scored a great
success with La voix
humaine in London. She has sung both Mimì
and Violetta in Seattle and is a frequent artist
at all the major opera houses of the world.
Angelica:
Maria Gavrilova
Soprano (Chelyabinsk City,
Russia)
Seattle Opera debut
This Russian-born artist
has a rich Verdi or verismo
voice, scoring major
successes in Europe and
at the Metropolitan Opera.
The Princess:
Rosalind Plowright
Mezzo-Soprano (Worksop, UK)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Klytämnestra, Elektra (’08)
Over a great career in
England, Europe and
the United States, Ms.
Plowright has always
amazed her audiences with her grasp of
the innermost meanings of the words that
she sings. Her Klytämnestra here in 2008
was astonishing in her power and curious
vulnerability.
Conductor
Gary Thor Wedow
(La Porte, IN)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Orphée et Eurydice (’12)
Extraordinarily successful
at Seattle Opera
with Gluck, Handel and
Mozart, this brilliant conductor
has spent much of his life conducting
Italian and French opera of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.
Director
Bernard Uzan
(Paris, France)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Attila (‘12)
Set & Costume Designer:
Pier Paolo Bisleri
Seattle Opera debut
Lighting Designer
Connie Yun
(East Lansing, MI)
Recently at Seattle Opera:
Orphée et Eurydice (’12)
The sets and costumes
were successful in
Trieste; Uzan has staged
some of the most interesting
productions here in recent seasons and
has a particular affinity both to verismo and
the works of Poulenc and worked with Ms. Yun
to achieve the memorable and telling lighting
in Attila.
Spotlights by Jonathan Dean, Director of Public Programs and Media and author of English captions for Seattle Opera since 1997.
2012/13 Season at Seattle Opera 33