Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine is a spellbinding, one-act, one-woman opera based on a play of the same name written by Jean Cocteau, who directed the first production of the opera in 1959. Cocteau’s play also inspired other artworks including Almodovar’s famous film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The audience watch a woman receive a phone call from her lover and eavesdrop in real time as, over the course of fifty minutes, her life unravels as he tells her he is in love with someone else and ends their relationship. Her mood moves from tenderness to neediness and anguish, brilliantly expressed by Poulenc’s music. It’s a powerful, emotional work, with a heartbreaking perspective seen from just one side of a relationship. Audiences watch Elle experiencing every emotion as her life falls apart in an intense, universal story of love and loss. Northern Ireland Opera. Sung in French with English subtitles.