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Fiona Maddocks's rating
, The agony and the ecstasy
By
Fiona Maddocks
23 Nov 2006
Deborah Warner's impeccable staging of Poulenc's La voix humaine is 50 minutes of tortured emotional agony set to a luscious score.
Joan Rogers gives a ferocious performance as a scorned lover in neurotic thrall to a telephone mouthpiece, as she hopes, dreams, play acts, vomits and finally slits her wrists.
The decision to sing Cocteau's text in English, with a few Gallicisms for flavour, was inspired, especially since with Rogers you hear every syllable, with no need of surtitles.
Tom Pye's set, a grand bathroom with unmade bed en suite, perfectly mirrored the enclosed, suffocating world Poulenc created in this, his last opera, about his own painful experience of love.
In French mode of two centuries earlier, the Royal Academy of Music's excellent opera department has staged the UK premiere of Rameau's Dardanus (1739), stylishly directed by Robert Chevara with sumptuous costumes and simple set. Catch it tonight or tomorrow.
• La Voix Humaine, tonight and tomorrow (0870 737 7737).Royal Academy of Music (020 7873 7300).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
