July 19: La Voix Humaine by Francis Poulenc

Tragédie lyrique in one act by Francis Poulenc to a libretto by Jean Cocteau after his play; Paris, Opéra-Comique (Salle Favart), 6 February 1959.

La voix humaine was conceived and written (February to June 1958) for the soprano Denise Duval. It is in a single act, has a single set and is written for a single singer. As the curtain rises we see the soloist, a young, elegant woman (frequently referred to as ‘Elle’) stretched out on her bed. It is, as Cocteau says, ‘like the scene of a murder’. She rises and makes to leave but just as she reaches the door the telephone rings. She spends the rest of the opera, some 40 minutes, on the telephone. Mostly she is talking to her lover, but the opera opens with a wrong number and is punctuated with the various vicissitudes of a French telephone system which, even when the opera was written (28 years after Cocteau’s play), was notoriously unreliable. Thus an already desperate conversation is interrupted by crossed lines, losses of connection, and panicky rediallings which only serve to exacerbate the already obvious depression and anxiety of the heroine. Indeed these frustrations seem increasingly relevant, for the couple’s relationship has itself been cut off, and she can no longer, in any sense, get through to him; the fact that we can only hear her side of the conversation serves to underline the situation: having left her, he has nothing to say beyond the most banal concern for her state of mind and health. This state soon becomes clear. She lies about what she is wearing, tries unsuccessfully to conceal that she has attempted suicide, becomes by turns jealous, inquisitive, insanely anxious, self-pitying and nostalgic. It becomes evident that he is not at his home; when she hears jazzy music in the background she chooses to play along with the lie, preferring to blame his neighbours. In the end she lets the telephone take his place, wrapping the cord round her neck and taking the receiver to bed with her; when she knows that communication is impossible she begs him to ring off and is left murmuring ‘Je t’aime’ into an unhearing earpiece.

Poulenc’s music for La voix humaine betrays a composer all too familiar with the pulse and pace of nervous exhaustion and depression. Much of the vocal writing is unaccompanied, often jagged, gabbled and obsessive, or more frequently punctuated with ‘panicky’ outbursts from the orchestra. Much of the writing is a development of the music of fear which runs throughout his previous opera, Dialogues des Carmélites, but the long vocal lines which are there associated with faith or strength are here signally absent. The only time melody underpins the heroine’s nostalgia, its sentimentality seems to make its own comment on the heightened colour her memories have attained. This tour de force of extended recitative writing, where each outburst, change of mood, even silence is precisely notated, is held together by sumptuous and highly coloured orchestration (Poulenc insisted that the music should be ‘bathed in sensuality’) but can only escape monotony in the hands of a peerless performer. Denise Duval recorded the work and gave it in several places outside France; more recently Elisabeth Söderström has proved to be her equal.

Jeremy Sams. "Voix humaine, La." The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Ed. Stanley Sadie. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 9 Sep. 2008 .