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Poulenc LA VOIX HUMAINE
Dame Felicity Lott & Graham Johnson

Champs Hill DVD CHRBR045 [41:00 ]

A fine new DVD of the piano version of Poulenc's opera La Voix Humaine celebrates Felicity Lott in advancing years and perfect voice, losing her lover to Graham Johnson's piano accompaniment.

Playing this version was banned in Poulenc's life time. Poulenc himself had performed the work accompanying Denise Duval on the piano, but he forbade further performances of the piano version.

For this DVD, the performers received special permission from the Poulenc estate to perform the French version and this, its world première recording, is welcome at a time of renewed interest in piano solo arrangements of neglected concertos, and in reviving oddities like the 'melodramas' (spoken to piano accompaniment) of Richard Strauss.

If the embargo were to be lifted and permissions might be extended, La Voix Humaine could become a popular piece for future opera singers training in the conservatoires?

This version enables "Flott" to be far more intimate and realistically confiding on the telephone than on stage with an orchestra.

The Champs Hill DVD has text and translation provided as subtitles, and there are two discs provided, one normal and the other Blu-Ray (which the fine Norwegian label 2L does as a routine).

The "normal" one is fine ! Steve Plant's filming is unfussy and perfect; no multi-camera tricks which give filmed concerts a bad name...

Only one tiny regret; for the filmed version those of us who remember the phones of old would have been pleased if a recording of the ring-tone of a Paris telephone of the time had been used for the frequent interruptions, instead of a tinkle on the piano.

May this be a first DVD of many from Champs Hill?

Peter Grahame Woolf

See also Planet Hugill

and a Thesis on line FRANCIS POULENC’S PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA
LA VOIX HUMAINE (1958) Cynthia C. Beard
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