LA VOIX HUMAINE - Seattle Opera

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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
Page 1: Nuccia Focile as Elle in La Voix Hu
Page 5 and 6: Aria Ready? spotlight on SUOR ANGEL
Page 7: his health, and kept her on as a ma

LA VOIX HUMAINE - Seattle Opera

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