Crossed and fractured lines - La voix humaine Sarah Minns

From Roger Thomas

When Denise Duval premiered Francis Poulenc's tragédie lyrique La Voix Humaine, in 1959, she wasn't exactly young. But recordings of her performing it reveal a bright, youthful voice and impressive acting skills. A regular in new Poulenc works, Duval fulfilled what the composer called for in his brief notes on the musical interpretation: [the role] "ought to be performed by a young and elegant woman. This is not about an elderly woman who has been abandoned by her lover."
 
At Kings Place, London, Sarah Minns, with Richard Black (musical director) an expert hand at the piano, in Poulenc's own piano version of La Voix, uses the English translation by Joseph Machlis issued by Poulenc's publisher, Ricordi, in 1977. Minns is a few years younger than Duval was in 1959 and ideally fits Poulenc's call for youth and elegance. She is also one of the most capable actors in classical singing in London. That is crucial because, to be successful, La Voix Humaine -- a 40 minute-plus psycho-drama for soprano (called, simply, Elle) in conversation on the telephone with a former, or still fleeing, lover, whose voice we never hear, with alternating emotional support and assault from the piano score -- is no place for acting wimps.
 
In her programme notes to this OperaUpClose production, director Robin Norton-Hale tells us that in the opera's preparation she and Minns mapped out what the unheard lover at the other end of the line might have been saying. An eminently sensible strategy, which added colour and authenticity to Minns's responses. There is clearly a back story in Jean Cocteau's libretto (based on his 1928 play). Elle's lover is already well on the run. From what Elle says on the phone it emerges that he is seeking to retrieve letters they have exchanged. And the lover has abandoned his pet dog at Elle's apartment. The dog passage is apparently sometimes cut by directors who see it as a baffling non-sequitur, but Minns's extremely sensitive delivery of the description of the dog's state -- pining for his master, refusing to eat, lurking in the hall, turning vicious -- makes it clear that the dog is a surrogate in suffering for Elle. "In spite of his intelligence, he surely cannot guess the truth."

But since Elle's phone conversations are fraught with deception -- about what she is wearing, where she has been and with whom (lunching with Martha?), when she has in fact been in a sleeping-pill swoon -- how do we know for sure that the dog is not still full of joie de vivre and eating well? Or maybe stiffly starved to death on the doormat. Elle's changes of mood are adeptly handled by Minns: her frustrations with the party line (nothing to do with the Parti Communiste Française -- if you are too young to have experienced one, check Wikipedia); her barefaced lying bravado (not that the unheard voice does not offer his own fair share of deception); her descent into despair, sometimes retracting her lies to the point of admitting to what is effectively a suicide attempt. Another crucial episode -- when "Madame" interrupts on the party line for the third time. Elle's anger at the eavesdropping as portrayed by Minns is visceral and scary. ("But, Madame, we're not trying to be interesting, I can assure you ... If you really find us so silly, why are you wasting your time instead of hanging up?"). In her anger, Minns powerfully reminds the audience that we too have been salaciously listening in on a private conversation for the past half hour or so.

Simplicity and elegance are key features of this production, with a nod towards the 1930s. Minns wears white silk pajamas, sometimes with a fur-collared overcoat over them (set and costume designer: Kate Lane). Lane's set is minimalist and subtly lit (lighting designer: Richard Williamson). At first I thought the wire mesh panels might be overstressing Elle's isolation and mental imprisonment, all of which is more than adequately spelt out in the libretto. But I rapidly concluded that they amounted to rooms in the apartment that Elle could wander around while remaining visible. A telephone expert did suggest to me that the phone flex might be out of style for the 1930s. But nothing is perfect in this world, is it? 

Certainly no directorial overkill here. Do we really need the audience being guests at a party in Elle's apartment (she's not well enough to organise one), or videos of the voiceless lover? No, not when what is all there already in the libretto and piano score is so skilfully presented.

 La Voix Humaine continues at Kings Place Hall 2 on 6 and 20 August; on tour at Redbridge Drama Centre, London E8, on 3 October, and North Wall Theatre, Oxford, on 20 November.

 Photo: Christopher Trimble

La voix humaine, Kings Place, Sarah Minns Opera Up Close

Francis Poulenc La voix humaine  with Sarah Minns at Kings Place, London, five performances from 2nd July to 20th August. It's a new production from Opera Up Close.  Booking details HERE.  Podcast HERE.

This will be sung in English, using Joseph Machlis's "official" translation of the libretto published by Ricordi in 1977. Pianist/Musical Director is Richard Black, Director is Robin Norton-Hale.

La voix humaine is a taut psycho drama demanding above average acting skills, and the stamina to hold intensity without respite for over an hour. Not many singers can pull it off well,  but Sarah Minns almost certainly can. She's an exceptionally good actress, as well as singer, and has made a speciality of operatic one-handers, including two UK premieres: Katarzyna Brochocka's The Young Wife (read more here) and even better still, Manfred Trojahn's Rilke song cycle, Insomnia, about Lou Andreas-Salomé, the mysterious woman who captivated Nietzsche, Freud, Rilke and Paul Rée.  Trojahn's piece is fairly well known in Germany, though not in Britain. It's a challenge because the action unfolds as a series of scena  based on extracts from letters rather than formal narrative.  Musically and emotionally sophisticated, and rewarding.  Minns didn't just steal the show: she "was" the show, creating Andreas-Salomé's mysterious, compelling personality to perfection.  On stage, she "became" the part so convincingly that it was a shock to see her later without costume and makeup, chatting happily like a normal person.  Art and reality!  Poulenc's La voix humaine is a tour de force, but with Minns, it should be worth experiencing.

Minns was also the star of  John Barber's Eleanor Vale at Wedmore Opera in Somerset, an opera that's strong enough on its own terms to be worth reviving. Read more about that HERE. 

Stéphane Degout : Poulenc Ravel Saariaho

Stéphane Degout (photo: Julien Benhamou)

Stéphane Degout at the Wigmore Hall, London, in Poulenc and Ravel with Cédric Tiberghien, joined by Matteo Cesari (flute) and Alexis Descharmes (cello) for Saariaho. Thanks to rain and traffic chaos, the house wasn't sold out, as it should have been, but those who attended were there because they can recognize genuine quality. We were well rewarded - excellent programme, delivered with idiomatic stylishness. Degout is one of the most distinctive voices of his type around, the ideal Pelléas, for example, and Tiberghien is a star in his own right, as well as song accompanist. Dream Team .

Poulenc and Apollinaire featured, starting with the much loved early songs from Le bestiare (1919) where serious thoughts are disguised beneath playful images. These songs are funny, but also wistful. "Est-ce que la mort vous oublié, poissons de la mélancholie? " So much for the image of the golden carp, cavorting in unthinking bliss.  Apollinaire's elegant insouciance acts like armour plating, protecting the soul from the cruelty of the world.  The door to the hotel in Montparnasse (1945) is decorated with plants that will neither flower nor fruit.  There are "raies sur lesquelles il ne faut pas que l'on marche" - thresholds that must not be crossed.  "O, bon petit poète un peu bête trop blond " . Degout shaped that wonderful short phrase, bringing out its ironic anguish. the poet is pretty, and means well, but will always be a tourist, living on the surface, never connecting to reality. There's much more to these songs than charm, Degout brought out their painful undertones. 

Degout and Tiberghien let Apollinaire himself speak, playing a recording of the poet himself reciting. A tiny fragment, preserved on grainy tape, a ghostly but powerful presence.  "Joy and Melancholy" said Degout, "what Poulenc liked in Apollinaire". Thus we listened to the Calligrammes (1948), epigrammatic miniatures that seem torn from greater dramas beyond our knowledge.  In Aussi bien que les cigales, the piano part evokes the stultifying heat of the Midi. where people seem hypnotized by complacency. "Que vous ne savez pas vous éclairer ni voir" sang Degout with a poignant mix of anger and sorrow.  Lest we, too, be lulled by these moments of direct confrontation, Degout and Tiberghien launched into the livelier Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire (1931)  and Banalités (1940). In photographs,  people pose and smile, masking whatever might really be happening. Apollinaire and Poulenc create snapshots, freeze framing human experience in tiny, concentrated fragments. It's up to the sensitive interpreter to develop them into wider scenarios.  Alors, Avant le cinéma, where the text plays with words like "cinéma", "ciné" and "cinématographie".   Degout paused, briefly, to highlight the irony.  "Aussi, mon Dieu faut-il avoir du goût"   ie, some folks don't care about what's really going on as long as they can be seen to have taste.  

Alexis Descharmes, the cellist, introduced Kaija Saariaho's Cendres (1998) for alto flute, cello and piano. Saariaho's aim in this piece was to create musical tension by "sometimes bringing the instruments as close together as possible in all compositional aspects (such as pitch, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, colour), sometimes letting each of them express the music in their own most idiomatic way". The result is a well-balanced flow which generates colour and movement. The flute cries: is it the wailing of a wild bird  ? Elaborate patterns in the piano part, the cello part full of invention.  The piece is lucid, yet elusive by turns. Hearing Cendres in context with Poulenc and Apollinaire underlined the idea of listening simultaneously on different levels.  The joy of mixed programmes like this which stretch the listener's experience!   

Then, just as we began to appreciate the emotional sophistication of this programme, Degout and Tiberghien switched away, elusively, to Ravel.  Chansons madécasses (1925-6) made use of the same forces as Cendres, Degout singing withn the same ensemble, so Ravel seemed to evolve out of Cendres as if a strange, exotic creature was being conjured up by magic. Nahandove, "L'oiseau nocturne a comencé ses cris".  Delicious  sensuality, yet also a tease. Degout emphasized the menace in the second song Aoua!, where the innocence of the islanders is betrayed . "Méfiez-vous des blancs, habitants du rivage".  Promises poisoned by slavery and death.  Just as Poulenc ended Calligrammes with a warning about complacency,  Ravel ends with the image of an island girl who doesnt think about much beyond her immediate self.  In  Histoires naturelles (1906),  the peacock, the cricket, the swan , the kingfisher and the guinea-fowl are beautifully observed nature portraits, yet they share something in common with the creatures in Poulenc and Apollinaire's Le bestiare because they are also oblique comments on the human condition.  

Please also see my piece on Poulenc Apollinaire Les Bleuets

Cubist Baroque Prom 7 Minkowski Poulenc Stravinsky Fauré

At Prom 7, Marc Minkowski conducted  the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a programme that demonstrated just how insular some British audiences can be. French style is different and needs to be understood on its own terms. Minkowski's punchy, vigorous approach underlines the importance of understanding the roots of idiom. Historically informed performance isn't about quaint instruments, it's about the spirit of music which refreshes itself in creative performance.  Minkowski, like so many conductors of his generation and before, learned from  baroque and early music that all music was once "new" and can still be new, performed with intelligence and with a sense of context.

Gabriel Fauré's Shylock Suite (1889) for example is about as true to Shakespeare as Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet or Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette.   Not "English" but endearing. Urbane and cosmopolitan, this Shylock's a man of the world, not a villain.   Minkowski began with the Entr'acte, with its striking brass fanfare from which emerges a seductive violin melody, introducing the Chanson and then the Madrigal, both lovely songs for tenor Julien Behr. We're in magical night-time Venice where troubadours serenade ladies in the moonlight. Dancing figures evoke starlight, or the play of light on water, and the Finale ends with a bright, cheerful flourish.

Minkowski describes Stravinsky's Pulchinella Suite (1922) as  "Bonsai....a miniature Rite of Spring" emphasizing its modernity. Though the ballet connects to baroque and commedia dell'arte memes, it was absolutely of its time, choreographed by Diaghilev, with designs by Picasso.  In an orchestral suite, dance imperatives aren't quite as central as in the ballet, but the idea of form and precision remains.  Minkowski gets articulate balance from the BBCSO. Fast flurries suggest movement and energy, violins are strummed like guitars, and bowed with angular zing.  "Gentle arrogance" says Minkowski on the BBC rebroadcast.  Listen to the trio where the bassoon blows sassy raspberries - this is Cubist baroque !  Stravinsky's neo-classicism was poised but very individual.  Yet again, the connection between period-inspired performance and modern music.

Minkowski made the point further by following Stravinsy Pulchinella with Francis Poulenc Stabat Mater (1950), inspired, in part by the Black Madonna of Rocamadour. How angular it is, worlds away from Michelangelo's Pietà in its Vatican splendour. It's much closer in spirit to the "primitivism" of the Fauves, Cubists and the avant garde of Poulenc's youth.  Ancient and modern, yet again. There are odd quirks, here, even the suggestion of medieval music  and the harsh terrain of the Languedoc.  As a meditation upon loss, Poulenc's Stabat Mater is unsentimental. Faith proves itself when it is tested, and in this lies its strength as Dialogues des Carmélites demonstrates. The tenderness of the quiet passages, and those in which the soprano (Julie Fuchs) sings. This tenderness offers a degree of solace, but also serves to underline the inevitable fate that lies ahead for all.  In the final moments of the Quando Corpus, though, the soprano's voice blazes upwards, joined by the choir and orchestra, reminding us that for the devout, there is hope.  Personally I'd prefer a craggier performance, which Minkowski could deliver well, but the refinement the BBC Singers and BBCSO produced was very moving.  Please see also my piece on Stravinsky's late works and musings on the nature of Faith.

Lest we forget - Bleuet Poulenc

Just as the Poppy symbolizes war to the British, the cornflower symbolizes loss and memory for the French. The Western Front was in France and Belgium, lest we forget....... French soldiers wore blue uniforms, hence the multiple connotations of the word "bleuet".

At right, Francis Poulenc aged 21, in uniform, painted by a friend. "Jeune homme /de vingt ans /Qui as vu des choses si affreuses /que penses-tu des hommes /de ton enfance/la bravure et la ruse" wrote Guillaume Apollinaire. Read the whole poem HERE in Emily Ezust's Lieder and Song Texts page, because Apollinaire sets the poem out so it descends diagonally across the page, as if the very words were marching. Apollinaire's visual layout emphasises the meaning of the poem,where phrases break off and the word "Mourir" stands alone.

"Young man of 20 , who has seen things so awful, what do you think of  the men of your childhood, of courage and cunning?

"You who have faced death in the face more than 100 times, you take it as if it were life.  Transmit your fearlessness to those who will come after you. Young man, you are joyful. Your memory is soaked in blood, your soul is red. with joy. You have absorbed the life of those who died next to you."

"For you it is decided.  It is 5 o'clock and you're going to die. If not better than those who went before you, at least more piously, because you know death better than you know life." 

"Ô douceur d'autrefois, Lenteur immémoriale"
.O sweetness of former times, to linger in eternity.

Apollinaire was injured badly at the front in 1917. Poulenc, writing his setting in October 1939, reflected not on militarism or glory, but on the tenderness with which Apollinaire depicted the waste of youth and life. 

Rattle conducts Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites, Royal Opera House

Claire Seymour's review of Poulenc, Dialogues des Carmélites, at the Royal Opera House. London. Read the whole piece HERE in Opera Today.

"A black bare stage heaving with a rebellious revolutionary throng; they stare with still hostility directly at the audience, stark light streaming from above. A scene from Boublil’s and Schönberg’s Les Misérables? No. The opening moments of Robert Carsen’s much-acclaimed production of Poulenc’s opera of courage, cruelty and redemption."


"Rattle clearly knows and loves this score: the brass play with purity and restraint in the chorale-like passages, and Rattle creates an iridescent sound-world in which glistening harps ripple and luscious strings surge in rapture, coloured by silky woodwind slithers, but one which is also ominously punctuated by shuddering, jagged rhythmic bursts of terror and brutality. The percussive slashes of the final march to the scaffold reveal the full unleashed force of the Royal Opera House Orchestra. Yet, despite Rattle’s care and attention - and Carsen’s imaginative faithfulness to the composer’s reputed preference for stagings which adopt a monastic austerity - there is no getting away from the fact that the score is dominated by an ever-repeating two-bar progression, in various harmonic inversions and timbral colourings, an infinite chain which becomes increasingly more wearisome and which makes it difficult to establish and sustain any driving musico-dramatic direction. Typical of the nature of Poulenc’s idiom is the terrifyingly moving final scene, which is underpinned by a rocking minor third; it is the raw rip of the slicing guillotine which provides the drama, rather than any harmonic conflict."

My piece on Olivier Py's 2013  production from Paris with Pétibon, Piau,, Koch, Gens, Lehtipuu etc is HERE


photos: Stephen Cummiskey 2014 courtesy Royal Opera House

Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites

Francis Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites at the Royal Opera House. Review HERE, but first a consideration of interpretation. Interpretation is  paramount to assessing any production. Criticism often latches onto things like sets and costumes because these are easy to isolate. But they're absolutely secondary to interpretation. Dialogues des Carmélites is interesting because it's austere; its meaning and methods not easy to penetrate.

The Carmelites take vows of silence, they don't fritter their lives away on frivolity. That's why Blanche chooses such a strict order. She lives in times of danger, when violence can overwhelm even the rich and protected.  Her mother was killed in shocking circumstances. Neurosis is implicit in her music which wavers tremulously up and down the scale. "C'est physiquement que je n'en puis supporter le bruit, l'agitation". In a convent, everyone wears the same uniform, but you can't escape into anonymity. Hence Poulenc defines the main characters through their music and their personalities.

Robert Carsen's Dialogues des Carmelites at the ROH was first seen nearly 20 years ago.  Last in December 2013, Olivier Py created a superb but different  approach at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.  Py's style is colourful, and often humorous but it brings out the  beauty in the opera. When Blanche is accepted as a novice, Patricia Pétibon is transfigured, lit with silvery light. Dialogues des Carmelites, because it unfolds as a series of disconnected tableaux, is like the Stations of the Cross. This structure is significant, for Poulenc is connecting the nun's journey to the guillotine to Christ's journey to the cross. He further emphasizes the non-linear progression by writing expressive interludes which are as much part of the narrative as the text. Woodwinds sing, bells toll, and a "window" opens above the stage, the outline of trees, also lit in silver. Religious paintings often showed the Infant Jesus with a tree in the background, which will someday become his cross. When Madame de Croissy lies dying, Rosalind Plowright is shown in a bed hanging from the wall, so we can hear her voice project into the auditorium. It's also an image of Christ on the Cross. The Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Jérémie Rhorer, play savage, stabbing dissonances. The dying woman thinks God has forsaken her, her perception as distorted as the perspective of her bed on the wall.

Py's use of delicate, subtle colours emphasizes spiritual purity, Sister Constance (Sandrine Piau, one of the "whitest" voices around) positively glows. At this point, Blanche can't understand the miracle of simplicity. The singing in this production is exceptional. This cast includes the finest French repertoire specialists around : Pétibon, Piau, Véronique Gens (Madam Lidoine), Sophie Koch (Mère Marie de l'Incarnation). [Indeed, the interaction between the singers is electric - the sisters "feel" like sisters, Pétibon and Piau in particular. The finest singing around at the moment, could hardly be bettered].  The male voices are just as good. They are lustrous. Topi Lehtipuu (the Chevalier de La Force) sings forcefully, but with refinement and with lustre, suggesting that Blanche will find similar inner strength when she faces her destiny.

As violence closes in, Poulenc's music takes on richer dignity. Pétibon is seen with her hair shorn, but defiantly ginger, while a chandelier glows with rich, golden light. The nuns are condemned to death. Dark, glowering chords in the music, strange angular lights grow maze-like from the floor of the stage. Brassy trumpets, pounding percussion. Yet the visual image is that of a stylized religious play, such as children might enact. At the moment of their death, the nuns are restored to innocence. "Salve Regina", they sing, lined across the stage. As each is killed, there's a thud and a singer leaves the stage. Can something as gruesome as the guillotine be shown with such beauty?  Yes, for Blanche and her sisters have found a greater truth, which those without their faith cannot comprehend. Blanche is seen, arms spread wide like Christ on the cross. Her face is beatific, as she sways in a circle against a backdrop of stars.


photos : Georges Bernanos

Poulenc Les mamelles de Tirésias, BBC SO, Barbican

Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites starts at the Royal Opera House this week. In complete contrast, Poulenc's  Les Mamelles de Tirésias, at the Barbican, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, with the BBC SO, BBC Singers and a good cast of soloists. Dialogues des Carmélites presents Poulenc, the Catholic, deeply spiritual and uncompromising. Les Mamelles de Tirésias presents Poulenc as insouciant satirist.  But beware! Poulenc set Guillaume Apollinaire so often that Apollinaire's zany, madcap idiom came naturally to him. Les Mamelles de Tirésias is funny, but it has an inner strength, almost as tough as Dialogues des Carmélites.
 
Tirésias comes from Zanzibar, not Zanzibar off the coast of Africa but a Zanzibar of the imagination, somewhere in the French Riviera, bright and breezy as a painting by Matisse.  But Apollinaire was writing under the shadow of the First World War and Poulenc during the German Occupation of France.The satire isn't mindless.

Thérèse (Hélène Guilmette) is a tame married woman who suddenly decides to become a man. Her breasts turn into balloons, so up she floats and away. Red, white and blue, the colours of the tricolor, but patriotism this isn't. Everything's upside down.  Frenchwomen in the First and Second World War were urged to produce babies as some kind of National Service. Replacing cannon fodder perhaps? So when Thérèse says no and becomes General Tirésias and leads an Army, cheered by women, the poliiical undercurrent is pretty explicit.  Thérèse's husband (Jean-François Lapointe) cross-dresses and is groped by the kind of men who think that;'s what women are for. He hits on a plan to produce 40,000 babies. When the chous sings "Papa"  their voices are sharp, suggesting the crowing of a cock - another image of French Nationalism. and male chauvanism to boot.  "Silence!" sings the husband, but the chorus will not be suppressed. Oh well, says the husband, the kids can make careers in the arts - and in journalism, the art of manipulating words. Of course, the kids pop up fully formed, overnight. It's that easy! Poulenc even writes into Tirésias.s part a long vocalize that sounds vaguely Moorish - perhaps a reference to French imperial rule. Needless to say, the Establishment didn't like it at its premiere. Anti-militarist, and non-breeding Benjamin Britten did, and wrote an adaptation.

Very bright, zappy performances by Guilmette, Lapointe and a cast who understood why diction has to be sharp and tempi fast.  Ludovic Morlot livened up the BBC SO and the BBC Singers: they don't often get this intoxicating fare. The photo above comes from a 1917 performance of Apollinaire's play, showing the Cubist influence.

Before Poulenc, Fauré's Requiem, produced with great sweetness. Nice performance, but, knowing what was to come next, I couldn't quite take it at face value.

Sandrine Piau, Roger Vignoles, Wigmore Hall

Sandrine Paiu and Roger Vignoles teamed up  for the latest concert in Vignoles's "Perspectives" series at the Wigmore Hall.  Piau's background is in the baroque, where the ethereal purity of her voice seems to illuminate the music. Yet she's also passionately involved in 20th century French music, and has worked with innovative ensembles like Accentus.

Piau and Vignoles are a well-balanced partnership, and on the basis of this concert, should work together more often. Piau brings out the best in Vignoles. He was playing with great refinement, as if inspired by her distinctive "white" timbre. Piau's Fauré songs were good, but her Chausson set even better. Her Amour d'antan (op 8/2, 1882) glowed, legato perfectly controlled so lines flowed seamlessly. In Dans la forêt du charme et de l’enchantement (op.36/2, 1898) Piau observes the tiny pauses between words in the first strophe so they're brief glimpses of elusive fairies. Then Piau's voice darkens. The fairies aren't real. "Mirage et leurre", she sings, desolated. Piau sings almost unaccompanied in Les Heures (op 27/1, 1896), Vignoles playing with restraint so as not to break the fragile mood of the song. Hear these again on Piau's recent recording "Après un rêve" (details HERE).

In the more robust Liszt songs,  like Der Fischerknabe, (S292), to a poem by Friedrich Schiller, Vignoles's playing sparkled delightfully, like the waters that seduce the fisherman's boy. "Lieb' Knabe, bist mein!" sings Piau sharply, as the boy is pulled under the waves. Piau's voice maintains its innocence, but the piano with its sharp lunge downwards tells us that it's a malign spirit who drags the boy down. Der Loreley (S273, 1856) is even more dramatic, Piau intoning the word "Loreley"  so you hear the tragedy behind the loveliness.

Piau's 2002 recording of Debussy Mélodies with Jan van Immseel, is still one of the best available. Ten years later, Piau's voice is still fresh. Her Ariettes oubliées (op 22) to poems by Verlaine, was a pleasure. Long, arching lines, thrown out effortlessly in Il pleure dans mon coeur, expressing sadness, tinged with a very French decorum. "Quoi? null trahison? .....ce deuil est sans raison". You feel the smile behind the tears. In Chevaux de bois, Vignoles plays lines that move in circles, while the voice part leaps up and down. The image of a merry-go-round, where wooden horses seem to prance when there's music. "Tournez, tournez", sings Piau with a hint of sorrow, for soon the fair will end. You can hear the chucrch bells toll  in the piano part and guess at what they mean.

Piau sang some of the Zemlinsky and Strauss songs she recorded a few years ago with pianist Susan Manoff.  This time they seemed livelier, perhaps because Vignoles's style differs from Manoff's. This specially benefits Zemlinsky. The brightness of Piau's timbre gives his songs a lift they don't often get. For various reasons, he's not well served on recording. Piau sang Richard Strauss's Mädchenblumen (op 22 1891) with similar grace and charm. Two Poulenc sets rounded off the evening : Deux Poèmes de Guillame Apollinaire (1938) and Deux Poèmes de Louis Aragon (1943). In Allons plus vite and Fêtes galante, Piau demonstrates impeccable diction at breakneck speed. The words busrts out like machine gun fire. Poulenc is taking aim at the complacent bourgeosie, shaking them out of their torpor. In the famous and very lovely song C, Piau and Vignoles are even more moving. "J'ai traversé les ponts de Cé", sings Piau recalling French history flowing like a river. "O ma France! O ma délaissée". France is occupied by the Germans. It's a cry of pain, a dose of harsh reality after all those fairy songs and flowers.

Full review here in Opera Today.

Sandrine Piau is the soloist in a special concert at the Wigmore Hall on 15th October with Ian Page and Classical Opera titled "Ruhe sanft : A Mozart Kaleidoscope". Be there.

 If you liked this concert you would have loved these Wigmore Hall concerts :  Véronique Gens : Massenet, Gounod..... Florian Boesch Die schone Mullerin........Werner Gura Schubert songs .....Sandrine Piau Schubert Transcribed.

Barbican 2012 2013 Opera and Vocal

Hooray for the Barbican, going for baroque on baroque! The Barbican is ideal - big enough to afford top performers, small enough not to overwhelm the aesthetic. Even though soloists haven't yet been announced, it's likely that Les Talens Lyriques Lully Phaéton, cond. Christophe Rousset on 8/3/13 will be a highlight - just 15 months to go! Another relative rarity - Handel Imeneo on 29/5/13. It's not Blockbuster Handel, but more delicate, and the cast is excellent - Rebecca Bottone, character soprano par excellence who lifts everything she's in. Already I'm looking forward to what Robert Hugill will write about this (read his review of a much less stellar performance).

David Daniels will sing in that and also in Handel Radamisto (10/2/13) with Harry Bicket, English Consort, Luca Pisaroni, Patrica Bardon and Elizabeth Watts - infinitely stronger cast than the ENO staging. Two Les Arts Florissante performances - John Eliot Gardiner conducts Handel Belsahazzar on 13/12/12 and Paul Agnew conducts Monteverdi Madrigals Book 5 on 15/6/13. It's JEG's 75th birthday next March, and he's celebrating by conducting Stravinsky Oedipus Rex.

If baroque don't rock your boat, there's a full Grieg Peer Gynt 15/12/12 with Miah Persson, Ann Hallenberg, Johannes Weisser, BBCSO and BBC Singers and the wonderful Marc Minkowski. Although everyone knows bits of Peer Gynt, hearing it as a whole is extremely rewarding. And just the thought of Miah Persson singing Solvieg's Song gives me goosebumps.

Donizetti's Belisaro (28/10/12) with Mark Elder, BBCSO and an interesting Poulenc Les animaux modèles (26/4/13) with readings and video projections, which can be fine, done well. Stéphane Denève conducts the BBCSO.

Re British opera, you could go for Britten The Turn of the Screw (Andrew Kennedy, Sally Matthews, Colin Davis,16/4/13) but far more unusual would be the Oliver Knussen double bill, Where the Wild Things Are and Higgelty Piggelty Pop!  (3/11/12). It's a matinee, because they were inspired by books Knussen's daughter used to read.  Although this will be a must for people with kids, it's also a good outing for those who don't have them, since this kind of zany good humour is so Knussenesque. He mostly conducts these days but he's a pretty good composer too.

Wild card: John Adams The Gospel according to the Other Mary, a Barbican co-commission. (16/3/13). Adams can be variable, see Nixon in China, but the subject's very tricky. Gustavo Dudamel's first big, big opera premiere with the LA Phil and Peter Sellars directing. Maybe it will be good, but my gut instincts are that this constellation will bring out fashion victims in force.  Two weeks later, Valery Gergiev conducts Szymanowski Stabat Mater and Brahms German Requiem. Will Gergiev bring us back to earth? He has his merits, and could say much in Szymanowski.

Recitals with Juan Diego Florez, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming,  Elina Garanca, Cecelia Bartoli and Magdalena Kozcena.

Tomorrow : Barbican orchestral 2012-3. Please also see Barbican 2011-2 vocal and Barbican orchestral 2011-2, as 2012 has only just begun! For link, see here.

Poulenc Dialogue des Carmélites Guildhall

Dark, fractured shards shroud the stage at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for Francois Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. The shards resemble broken glass, as if the audience is peering through a window that has been shattered.  For the French Revolution has shattered society: everything's being smashed, the convent, the aristocracy and innocent lives.  It's also a vivid metaphor, for Poulenc's edgy, angular music thrusts and cuts relentlessly. No easy lyricism here even if Poulenc's idiom is  easier on the ear than many other composers' might be, given such material. This production, directed by Stephen Barlow and designed by David Farley, is impressive because it's so musically astute.
Full review in Opera Today HERE.
Dialogues des Carmélites is an unusual opera because it unfolds as a series of disconnected tableaux, like the Stations of the Cross. This structure is significant, for Poulenc is connecting the nun's journey to the guillotine to Christ's journey to the cross. Poulenc further emphasizes the non-linear progression by writing expressive interludes which are almost as much part of the narrative as the text. In "normal" productions this subtlety can be lost. At the Guildhall, the shards close in, isolating the stage, so the audience is forced to pay attention to what's happening in the orchestra.  Simple inexpensive staging but extremely effective. I suspect they're just boards swathed in velour, but litt from above, the shards look like glass. Lit from behind, they resemble rocks. (lighting design : Declan Randall). The shards also hide the many scene changes, so momentum isn't wasted. A practical as well as an artistic solution to the musical demands of this remarkable opera. 

This is what good stagecraft should be, created around music and meaning. This isn't a typical opera because it's very direct and to the point. No decoration in the music, so no fussy effects on the stage. In the Final Act, the mob descends on the Place de la Révolution. The guillotine is shown only in the distance, hidden by the mob, who are dressed in shades of red. As the mob moves, the red  moves, like a stream of blood. No need to depict the executions - the image expresses so much. The nuns stand in a line confronting the audiernce. In real life they'd hardly be wearing immaculate vestments, but spiritually they're already among the angels, as one by one, each nun is picked out by spotlight. At last the shards are vanquished, like the barbarism they depict. Sister Blanche of the Agony of Christ is shown alone in a moment of glory, transfigured with light.

This production is so good it could be transferred to a much bigger, higher-budget house and still be astounding. Since the Guildhall also teaches stagecraft, it means that the students will be learning their business from good hands. Even singers and musicians benefit, because by taking part, they're  learning how intelligent, musically-informed staging is made. A useful skill now that audio only recordings no longer dominate the industry and opera is once again appreciated as all-round drama.

It's a pleasure to watch how the GSMD students respond. For a change, they're acting very well, for Barlow's good at directing people. Very natural movement, often closely co-ordinated with musical detail. Nicely blocked crowd scenes, concentrated when needed (as in the mob), diffuse when the nuns feel isolated in their travail. The nuns are treated like individuals, which is what they are, despite the regimention of the Carmel.  Principals are well cast too - it's good to hear familiar voices get good exposure.

The role of Blanche in Dialogues des Carmélites is interesting, because Poulenc isn't explicit but hints at worrying traits of neurosis and self-delusion. Something's very not right about a girl who screams at the butler's shadow and causes her brother such anguish. Nowadays such girls wouldn't be accepted into the novitiate. Whoever sings Blanche needs to fill in the backstory for herself, so it's convincing when Blanche makes her sacrifice. Anna Patalong sings 3/3 and 7/3, Natalya Romaniw on 5/3 and 9/3. They're both major names at GSMD.

Blanche is emotionally vulnerable while the old Mother Superior, Madame de Croissy (Cátia Moreso) seems strong but dies a traumatic death. It's a high point in the opera because it reverses the idea of a pious person being free from doubt. Moreso sings with a force that belies her supposed physical weakness. Poulenc's not into literalism but spiritual veracity. Just as Blanche's music is hyper, so is Mme de Croissy's, though of course in different ways.  Both are more affected by the turmoil around them than they let on.

Mère Marie (Sylvie de Bedouelle and Amy J Payne), Mère Jeanne (Sioned Davies) and Madame Lidoine (Sky Ingram) are all strong, conventional characters. The book that inspired the play on which Poulenc based his opera was written by a German feminist, Gertrud von le Fort, who could see what was happening around her in the 1930's. The French Revolution didn't have a monopoly on mobs. The male principals too are relatively conventional parts, very solidly created. Gary Griffiths and Koji Terada alternate as the Marquis de la Force, Charlie Mellor and Paul Curievici as the Chevalier and Alberto Sousa sings the priest. Excellent

So pay attention to the role of Soeur Constance. She drives Blanche to distraction because she's so irrepressibly cheerful, but she is the one who intuits the meaning of Mme Croissy's death. Sophie Junker sings the part vivaciously, and Barlow directs her to leap and dance. Psychologically right, although Carmelites are a semi-silent order. Constance isn't a typical heroine, but she's so full of joie-de-vivre that the sacrifice the nuns will make is thrown into high perspective. Lovely ensemble singing and hymns.

Yet Dialogues des Carmélites, despite its religious subject, isn't as solemn as might seem. It's distinctively Poulenc, and Poulenc's sardonic. Blanche is devout but her music verges on deranged. The Prioress acts like she's older than Methuselah but she's only 59 (and Poulenc lets us know exactly how her life was divided). Her death scene's over the top, so it's almost funny how the nuns are shocked. Doubly ironic when you realize Poulenc's best friend was dying when he wrote this music. It's like whistling in the graveyard, overcoming fear by denying its power. Typical Poulenc irony.  Listen to some of the key wind parts, too, especialy the sour-sweet solos, and the raucous churning in the strings. Soeur Constance's lively spirit could come straight out of Banalités (which are anything but banal) or Les mamelles de Tirésias. Poulenc's elegant, ironic wit cannot be silenced any more than the nuns' faith can be supressed.  A more formal improved version of this will appear in Opera Today.

Photos : Clive Barda courtesy GSMD (details embedded)

Most exciting show in town - Guildhall!

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2011/03/poulenc_dialogu.phpThe most exciting show in town and it's a Guildhall production! HERE IS FULL REVIEW. Which shows, never underestimate the power of student productions. Superlative Poulenc Les Dialogues des Carmélites at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama tonight. Ths one's a force to be reckoned with - way better than many high-budget big houses. Extremely tightly focused stage action (Stephen Barlow) perfectly in tune with the orchestra (which matters with Poulenc). Marvellous set (David Farley), which expresses both music and drama and also overcomes the practical challenges the constant scene changes create. Good performances all round too. If GSMD students are learning at this level, who knows what great things they'll go on to 
in the future? This is a very unusual opera, but the production is extremely well thought through. Someone understands Poulenc's idiom and what the opera really means! 

I'll write much more later because this is so good that it really deserves in-depth comment. Get to it if you can - it's fabulous !  Next performances: Saturday 5th, Monday 7th and Wednesday 9th. More thru this link.

GSMD Opera - Dialogue of the Carmelites

Another Guildhall School of Music and Drama production coming up this week - Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites.  All GSMD events are interesting because those involved are fresh and motivated. This opera's full of high drama - cloistered nuns, holy fervour, the French Revolution and the guillotine. Death and sex (or rather the repression of sex). Be prepared for an eventful evening. FOR THE FULL REVIEW CLICK HERE

Guildhall productions are always worth supporting because students need the experience of performing and public feedback. Not everyone becomes Bryn Terfel (graduated 1989) but all benefit. What better training in presentation skills, organization and public interaction? These are great skills in any business. GSMD delivers more than "just" the arts.

GSMD operas are always stimulating, even when they're over the top, because the students have energy and committment. Past productions have included Sallinen The King Goes Forth to France, Rossini La cambiale di matrimonio, Martinu The Marriage and the rarity Spinalba by Fransceco d'Almeida which had a lot more going for itb than most realized.

GSMD students work with established professionals, so they hone their skills. This GSMD production will be directed by Stephen Barlow, well known for his stagings of Fantastic Mr Fox, Tosca, and Hansel and Gretel at Holland Park. He's also worked at Glyndebourne, ROH and the Met. (He's not the composer Stephen Barlow, married to Joanna Lumley). Conductor will be Guildhall regular Clive Timms.

But it's the students we really go to hear. Some good names to listen for : Gary Griffiths, Koji Terada,  Natalya Romaniw and many others. Ensemble work too is always enthusiastic. Terada and Romaniw are two of the four finalists in this year's Guildhall Gold Medal, to be awarded in May. (The other contenders are Ashley Riches and Victor Sicard.)

Performances on 3, 5, 7 and 9 March. More details on the GSMD site.

Hugues Cuénod and the art of singing

"I don't know if the world is farce but it is true that I always like to laugh and be surrounded by funny and imaginative friends. At the same time, all that I retain in my life is directly connected to those solemn moments like singing the Evangelist....and then the amusing things. I forget everything that is boring or puritanical, I think that nothing in life is really serious and that one must go through life as best one can, without thinking oneself important"

In wit often lies wisdom. Hugues Cuénod didn't have a booming, imposing voice but he used it intelligently. A piano doesn't play itself, nor a violin. Same too with voice. Physically muscles produce sound but what turns sound into art is the soul of the person within. Often we hear technically proficient voices but if the lights aren't on inside, so what?  Real singers whatever their level, aren't machines.

Hugues Cuénod shows what makes a true artist. He didn't make his Met debut til he was 85 but the Met wasn't the centre of his world. Paris was, or perhaps London, but in his heart, maybe he never really left Vevey in Switzerland where he was born and died 108 years later, adored by the local townsfolk. This the same young man who brought Monteverdi, Cavalli, medieval and baroque singing into the 20th century. He was one of the greatest Bach interpreters and  knew every composer, performer and significant artist in his time from Stravinsky onwards.  He mixed with high society, yet never let it go to his head. First and foremost he was an artist, with a sense of wonder and adventure. That's perhaps why he sang Krenek's Jonny spielt auf in 1928 when it was still edgy. When he did Bitterweet with Noel Coward they both knew how close it sailed to the wind with its gay undertones. And he was happy to be part of the 30's crooner duo Bab et Babette.

What else can singers today learn from Hugues Cuénod?  "I would say first of all to take music seriously and not try to advance too quickly......Above all, I believe it's necessary to acquire extra-musical culture and to profit by having other activities of a refined nature". He was working on Ravel Don Quichotte à Dulcinée with a young man. "I told him to go look at (a painting by Daumier) for half an hour so he could understand why his interpretation was not satisfactory.....That's the kind of advice I'd like to give. Go to museums, read, don't restrict yourself by working only on your music and your exercises. Take half your time for study and use the other half to see the world...Al that is of the utmost importance for having a balanced and interesting life."

"I am content with little, and turn to advantage all the tiresome things  that happen to me.  I  remember uniquely the good moments of my life, and I believe that my existence could be summed up by a completely secular trinity : the gift of music, the gift of idleness and the gift of being kind and agreeable with my friends"

Poulenc La voix humaine - Carole Farley

Poulenc's La voix humaine is a rarity, because it''s exceptionally demanding. The singer is almost unsupported, carrying the entire opera on her own. It's a 45 minute psychodrama, where the singer has to go through a wide range of extreme emotions until she finally disintegrates mentally. No surprise few sopranos have it in their repertoire. But it has been Carole Farley's speciality, almost the trademark of her career. She's always been courageous, singing Lulu before she turned 20 and pioneering South American art song. Indeed, she put Carlos Lecuona on the map, literally, when she found a cache of the composer's manuscripts in cases stored by his family, and prepared them for performance. Since then lots of singers have discovered Lecuona, and other Cuban and Latin American art song composers because their music is so good, but Farley's recording remains the classic. It's lovely.

Tomorrow 4th October Carole Farley brings La voix humaine to London's Cadogan Hall. She's so closely connected to this piece that her DVD of it really is the one to get. There is also a DVD where Denise Duval sings with Poulenc at the piano, but it comes from a mixed concert where only a few short extracts are included, out of context, and it's not staged, which is part of its impact. Click on the video above for the last minutes of Carole Farley's recording. But you do need the whole DVD because it's so atmospheric it needs to be heard as a whole. Plus, it's paired with a wonderfully witty performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone. Unmissable and intelligent contrast.

La voix humaine isn’t easy listening, nor is it meant to be. We’re eavesdropping, literally, on an intimate, private moment, as the protagonist disintegrates emotionally. We’re intruding, yet compelled to follow the drama because we care about the woman as a human being. The text, by Jean Cocteau, is natural and understated, and for that very reason, we connect. Surprisingly, seeing it on film actually helps, because it provides a kind of buffer to the raw emotion, and helps you focus more fully on the music.

In this performance, the quality of orchestral playing is very good, very sensitively attuned to the voice part, and quite fascinating on its own terms. José Serebrier captures the underlying structure of the music well, which matters because the piece unfolds gradually in a series of stages which mirror the development of the narrative, as it gradually dawns on the protagonist that she can’t escape from reality. The tense, stabbing strings sound like an overture to a classic film noir, which is rather appropriate. The woman explicitly calls the telephone “a weapon that leaves no trace”. She may physically die by her own hand, but she’s been pushed to it in a peculiarly sinister, impersonal way. In the film, the introduction is expressed visually as the camera pans from outside the woman’s window into her private hell. We’re voyeurs at a crime scene.

The relationship between playing and singing here is particularly impressive. Even though the music has to accentuate the tension of the scene through sharp, metallic outbursts, it also seems to cradle the voice part. The cymbals crash, but their lingering resonance softens around the voice. Part of the reason this performance works well is that the conducting really brings out the chamber-like restraint in the orchestration. The playing is deft, but refined and supports, rather than competes against the voice. At one point, Farley sings with steely, suppressed tension, while the orchestra builds up to a big crescendo. Then she cries “I feel I can’t go on”, and you know the steely control cannot hold. Farley and Serebrier of course, are an artistic partnership, so the close rapport in this performance springs from very deep roots indeed.

La voix is a tour de force for any singer because it involves so many sudden changes of mood. Moreover, the character of the protagonist is difficult and quirky. This role is a challenge because it involves very intuitive understanding of character before it can be interpreted fully. Farley seems to have developed the character “from within”, understanding how she’s built up her delusions as a kind of armour around her essential fragility. Even before the woman was dumped, she had problems : she even lies about what she’s wearing, as if pretence is second nature. She’s inscrutable because she veils her feelings with many layers, all of which are valid, though contradictory. She’s certainly not stupid, for she immediately picks up she’s being dumped, even though she can’t bring herself to face it. Farley captures the multiple layers of feeling well. When she sings “Oui, oui, je te promêtte”, she infuses the line each time with a different nuance. She pretends to be the “good little girl” her lover used to care for, but she can’t conceal the edge of wariness and anxiety that sharpens her delivery. Similarly, her “tu es gentil” works on two levels: it’s meant to placate the lover, yet it is, at the same time an accusation of quite the opposite. The protagonist keeps finding excuses for her lover’s cruelty. Of course she’s staving off reality, but she’s also motivated by genuine love. When Farley sings “I swear nothing’s wrong”, she sings with grave dignity and tenderness, as if even in extremis, she wants to protect and forgive someone she loves so dearly.

Another reason why La Voix works so well on film is that an infinite amount can be conveyed by body language. Farley is a natural stage person. She moves like a cat, stretching and moving alertly, as if she were “on the prowl”, tense and alert. On film, you can see her face in close-ups, mobile and expressive. When she looks into the mirror and imagines herself old, she seems to shatter, as if we’re seeing her inner image, not the relatively youthful one on the outside. Best of all, she wraps herself around the telephone, crouching and cradling it lovingly, then, wrapping its cord around her body. “I have the cord around my neck” she sings, “your voice is around my neck”. The double meaning is sinister. She screams “Je t’aime! Je t’aime!” with rising desperation, and suddenly the image is cut off, like the phone line and the set is plunged into darkness. The film seems to have been shot in half-light, and there’s a rationale for that, but it’s not easy on the eye, and looks dated. It’s a pity as this is a performance to watch as well as listen to.

In complete contrast, then is the blinding brightness of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone. The set is a spotless apartment stuffed with unbelievably naff kitsch. It’s hilarious, a parody of the dumbest TV sitcoms. But that’s the point! A lady named Lucy lives here, an air-head bimbette in a fantasy world where everything is in the right place but nothing means anything. Her boyfriend tries to propose but she won’t get off the phone to her friends, so he has to call her. It’s the ultimate in safe sex, perhaps. The brightness of the set is matched by the perkiness of the orchestration. Hence, Farley’s characterization of the heroine is particularly trenchant. Her diction is clear, crisp and pert, capturing Lucy’s wide-eyed vacuity. There’s a lovely lyrical perkiness in her voice, too. Farley is a born comedienne, who manages to create mindless Lucy convincingly, yet comment on her shallowness at the same time. This is light-hearted material, but extremely well paced and performed.