Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House, London z Reviewed by Jarlath O’Connell
Cocteau Voices
The American
T
he ROH’s experimental studio space is there to push the boundaries and that is exactly what it’s done with Cocteau Voices, a challenging double bill of a dance work and a one act opera exploring the themes of possession and abandonment. Originated by choreographer Aletta Collins and the director Tom Cairns, both were drawn to the work of Jean Cocteau, the great French polymath (poet, dramatist, novelist, artist, essayist and film maker) and decided to stage the paradoxes and conflicts of Cocteau’s work from both movement and vocal perspectives. They had already successfully collaborated on a Channel 4 film about Cocteau, The Human Voice. First is a dance work, Duet for One Voice, for 3 male and 3 female dancers based around a theatrical monologue which Cocteau had originally written for his lover Jean Marais, but later adapted for Edith Piaf and her errant lover Paul Meurisse, graphically dissecting their failed relationship. Here, Collins’ translation of a monologue into a 30-minute dance work presents some challenges. The couple are each represented by three performers and we gradually build up
Hay-Gordon in Duet For One Voice, one of the Cocteau Voices
a picture of their tortured and crumbling union. Choreographically though, the piece seldom takes off, and it remains more in the realm of physical theatre. Set in a hotel room, it ends with a protracted sequence where a woman reads her Le Monde, blithely ignoring the turmoil of her lover. Scott Walker (yes, of those Walker Brothers, but stylistically a million miles away from their pop hit days) has composed a stark and unsettling electronic soundscape for this piece, which is eardrum shattering at times and includes growling animal noises. Sadly, it only seldom fuses with Collins’
tion with a departed lover and her increasing state of nervous exhaustion. Focile, who has played lead roles in all the world’s great opera houses, has tremendous presence and great diction and remains compelling throughout the piece, despite its general lack of dramatic momentum. Ensconced in her hotel room and clad in her robe de chambre, she spends the duration either on the phone, battling with crossed lines or desperately trying to get him back on the line. Focile is wonderfully adept at calibrating the torrent of emotions here and while the libretto is heavy with recita-
“..Cocteau Voices, a challenging double bill of a dance work and a one act opera exploring the themes of possession and abandonment” choreography. The ballet serves as a counterpoint to the second part of the evening, which is an existing work, a setting for a single voice by the French composer Poulenc (from 1959) of Cocteau’s monodrama La Voix Humaine. Sung in English by the acclaimed Italian soprano Nuccia Focile, this one-act 50-minute opera charts the woman’s desperate final agonising telephone conversa-
tive, Focile’s strongly accented English manages to ride the wave quite well. She is ably supported by the players of the Southbank Sinfonia under the baton of Garry Walker. Of the two pieces, the opera remains the strongest but this collaboration between dance and opera, as in the wonderful Dido and Aeneas/Acis and Galatea done on the main stage last year, remains a compelling prospect.
Nuccia Focile sings La Voix Humaine, a one-act 50-minute opera PHOTOS: TRISTRAM KENTON