La Voix Humaine

RECORDINGS OF THE WORKS

Francis Poulenc: Stemmen

Watch on NRK TV (1963)More recordings on Kulturbase

Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen, TrV 290

Open on YouTube (2016)More recordings on Kulturbase

Videos from Kulturbase

Address

Kirsten Flagstads Plass 1,
0150 Oslo

La Voix Humaine

Description

Groundbreaking music theatre about grief Barbara Hannigan sings and plays the leading role in Poulenc's famous one-act opera - while at the same time conducting Göteborgs Symfoniker. Painfully beautiful Few things hurt more than being abandoned. Francis Poulenc's opera La Voix humaine, based on Jean Cocteau's monodrama, describes such a farewell - a last, fragile telephone conversation between a woman and the man who now loves another. Barbara Hannigan has been described by The New York Times as «a daring singer and maestro with a reputation for innovative concert programmes». In La Voix humaine she leads both Göteborgs Symfoniker and the intense drama through live cameras on stage, breaking the traditional boundaries between conductor, singer and actor in real time. The production has been hailed internationally as one of the most innovative music theatre works of our time, and is regularly invited to prestigious opera and concert houses around the world. Musical memorial The concert opens with Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen. The piece was written towards the end of the Second World War and is regarded as one of his last great and most moving masterpieces. In the work, Strauss lets 23 string players speak, each with an individual voice - a collective expression of grief over the destruction of the war and a cultural heritage in ruins. The bombing of the opera houses in Munich, Dresden, Vienna and Berlin made a deep impression on Strauss, who experienced the loss of Munich's Hoftheater in particular as a personal catastrophe. Here his father had played in the orchestra for 49 years, and several of Strauss' own works had been premiered. The music is permeated by loss, but also by a quiet, almost stoic dignity, an artist looking back on everything that has been and everything that no longer exists.