VCH Presents La Voix Humaine

12 & 13 May 2018 Victoria Concert Hall

LA VOIX HUMAINE Jennifer Lien, soprano Shane Thio, piano Ivan Heng, direction & set design Brian Gothong Tan, multimedia & set design Suven Chan, lighting design Goh Lai Chan, costume design Francis Poulenc

La Voix Humaine 40’00

There will be a post-concert chat moderated by Ruth Rodrigues on 13 May.

S Y NOP S IS A woman is alone in her bedroom, apparently passed out on the floor. She wakes, and waits for her ex-lover to call. When he finally does, she clings to his every last word. She maintains a brave front, only to find out he is getting married tomorrow morning. They experience numerous connection problems. Flirting, pleading, manipulating and threatening suicide, she does everything she can to keep him on the line. But she must finally accept the inevitable – this will be their final conversation.

La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice) by Francis Poulenc, is a tour de force for solo soprano, that has enthralled audiences around the world for more than half a century.

Ivan Heng, Cultural Medallion Winner, dusts off and strips down this opera classic, to present an insightful, startling, theatrical roller-coaster ride of emotions.

Starring internationally acclaimed soprano Jennifer Lien and renowned pianist Shane Thio, with stunning visuals by multimedia artist Brian Gothong Tan, La Voix Humaine shines light on love and loss in a production for our times.

When our relationships are as much enabled as they are limited by technology, breaking up is hard to do.

JE NNIF E R L IE N soprano

Soprano Jennifer Lien has appeared as a soloist in concerts and operas in Singapore as well as in the U.S. states of California, New York, Florida, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. An active collaborator in chamber music and promoter of contemporary music, Jennifer is known for her innovative recital programming. In Singapore, Jennifer has been featured by the Singapore Lyric Opera, The Philharmonic Chorus, the Young Musicians’ Society, and the Sing Song Club. This August, she will appear as Madame Lidoine in New Opera Singapore’s Dialogues of the Carmelites. Jennifer is a graduate of Dartmouth college.

She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice from the University of WisconsinMadison, as well as Master of Arts degrees in Voice and Musicology from San José State University and UW-Madison. She has taught voice to majors and non-majors at UW-Madison and at Beloit College.

SH A NE T HIO piano

Shane Thio received his early music education in Singapore and was awarded an Associated Board Scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He is an inaugural recipient of the National Arts Council Young Artist Award, which enabled him to pursue further studies at the Royal College of Music.

Shane has worked with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Youth Choir, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, Singapore Lyric Opera, Singapore Dance Theatre, Theatreworks, Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Remix, Philharmonic Winds, Gamelan Asmaradana and Sing Song Club.

Shane performs regularly as a chamber music pianist and harpsichordist. In acknowledgement and support of local composers he has premiered and recorded numerous compositions.

The telephone is sometimes more dangerous than the revolver, its tangled cord drains us of our strength, while giving us nothing in return.” – Jean Cocteau Francis Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine (The Human Voice) is a forty-minute, one-act “lyric tragedy” for solo soprano, with text drawn from Jean Cocteau’s 1930 one-act play of the same name. The opera premiered, under Cocteau’s direction, in 1959 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. The setting is a phone conversation between a spurned woman and her former lover on the eve of his wedding.

Poulenc wrote the work for his friend, the soprano Denise Duval, whom he described as the “co-creator” of the opera. Duval had premiered the role of Thérèse in Poulenc’s comic-surrealist opera Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias), and Poulenc had written the tragic role of Blanche in Dialogues de Carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) for her. Poulenc and Duval collaborated closely in the creation of La Voix Humaine, a process documented in letters between the two.

For Cocteau, Poulenc, and Duval, La Voix Humaine sprang from the same deep emotional well. Thirty years earlier, Cocteau had authored the play after a devastating breakup. Like Cocteau before them, both Poulenc and Duval had recently experienced heartbreak. Duval later called the creation of the opera “an astonishing experience for me because I saw Francis Poulenc write it page by page, bar by bar, for me, with his flesh, but also with my heart wounds: we were then both in the midst of sentimental drama, we were crying, and this Voix humaine has been like a diary of our tears.” In a letter, Poulenc writes to Duval: “Since we begot this lovely sad child, it was worth having lived.”

Poulenc retained the bulk of Cocteau’s text, incorporating it into a musical language that allows the soprano free rein in driving the pace of the drama: speechlike recitative passages; open-ended pauses; lyrical climaxes. We get a forty-minute glimpse into the death of a relationship, hearing only the woman’s voice. We guess only from her words, and the music, what is on the other end of the line. We follow the woman’s jagged emotional landscape as she struggles to keep her dignity in the face of growing desperation, as an intimate relationship of five years is reduced to one tenuous telephone line.

The technology is a product of its time: a clunky phone system, subject to crosslines, missed connections, and interruptions. From our 21st century vantage point, it is tempting to similarly consign the woman’s desperate and self-destructive

plight to a bygone era. “Yes, I know it’s ridiculous, but I had the telephone in my bed… I rely on the telephone,” sings the woman. But just as a spurned lover of today may take a smartphone into his bed, so do matters of the heart continue to resonate in the present day. As a 78-year-old Denise Duval tells a skeptical young singer in a masterclass: “There are no women who haven’t waited for a phone call. There are no men who haven’t waited for a phone call… You’ll still be deceived by, still be in love with, a man you love but who doesn’t love you back. That, unfortunately, is life. There’s no era for that. La Voix Humaine is still performed and will be in a hundred years.”

Notes by Jennifer Lien

I VA N HE NG direction & set design

Ivan Heng is one of Singapore’s most prominent and dynamic creative personalities, and the founder and artistic director of W!LD RICE, Singapore’s leading professional theatre company. In 2013, he was awarded the Cultural Medallion, Singapore’s highest cultural award for his contribution to excellence and distinction in arts and culture.

In a pioneering career spanning nearly 3 decades, Ivan has directed and acted in many landmark Singapore theatre productions, which have been performed in more than 20 cities throughout Europe, Asia, America, Australia, New Zealand and Russia.

In 2000, with his portrayal of Emily of Emerald Hill, Ivan founded W!LD RICE. Under his leadership, the company is today at the vanguard of creating theatre with a distinctive Singaporean voice, celebrating our diversity and reflecting on the possibilities and problems of our times.

A law graduate from the National University of Singapore, Ivan trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

B R I A N G OT HONG TA N multimedia & set design

Brian Gothong Tan is best known for his cutting-edge and highly engaging works in theatre, film and installation art. He graduated from California Institute of the Arts in 2005 under the Shell-NAC Scholarship.

His works have been featured in numerous productions with companies like the Necessary Stage, Cake Theatre, Pangdemonium, W!ld Rice, Theatreworks, Action Theatre, Toy Factory, and Theatre Practice. He has won four Life! Theatre Awards for Best Multimedia in 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2016.

He was the Director of Film and Visual Effects for Singapore’s National Day Parade 2009, 2011 and 2016, Youth Olympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies in 2010, as well as SEA Games in 2015. His recent works include Tropical Traumas (SIFA 2016), Hemera’s Dream (Civic District Outdoor Festival), and Into The Wild, a video installation at the Art Science Museum. He was conferred the Young Artist Award in 2012, and Singapore Youth Award in 2015.

SUVEN CHAN lighting design

Suven graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (School of Technical Arts) and Hong Kong Baptist University (major in English Language and Literature).

Suven focused in lighting design during year 2000, after working 10 years as Production Manager and Stage Manager for various companies. Since then, she has designed lighting for most of the theatre and dance companies in Singapore. Recent musical productions include The Great Wall, 8th Asean Para Games Opening Ceremony and Jurong Songbook.

G OH L A I C H A N costume design

Lai Chan is a Singapore fashion designer, best known for his beautiful designs of the figure-flattering Chinese cheongsam, or the qipao. With his refined fashion sensibilities and unwavering commitment towards beauty and quality, Lai Chan has earned a reputable name in the local fashion circuit.

Some of Lai Chan’s designs include dramatic costumes for theatre, movies and film series, such as Romeo + Juliet, Shakespeare in the Park, and HBO’s Telemovie, Grace.

Lai Chan creates unforgettable, stunning pieces of evening gowns and wedding dresses.

These fashion pieces are timeless, comfortable, and come about from the ingenuity of combining traditional techniques and newer style influences.

His designs include a line of classic, elegant ready-to-wear prêt-à-porter collection that is sophisticated yet chic.

MIR A B E L NEO stage management

Mirabel has worked both locally and internationally as a Production Manager and Stage Manager. Her recent production credits include Singapore International Festival of the Arts 2017 - Becoming Graphic (2017), ChildAid (2017), Home Team (2017), Three Kin by T.H.E Dance Company (2017), and Orpheus in the Underworld (2016) by New Opera Singapore.

Having been a Production Stage Manager for several years, Mirabel believes that theatre was created to tell the truth about life. Theatre can and should transform society. There are many challenges she faces in each production and she treasures them as learning opportunities. Mirabel is grateful and would like to thank the team for the opportunity to work on La Voix Humaine.

T HE C R E AT I V E & P R ODU C T ION T E A M Ivan Heng, direction & set design Brian Gothong Tan, multimedia & set design Suven Chan, lighting design Goh Lai Chan, costume design Ashley Lim, hair Bobbie Ng (of The Make Up Room), makeup Mirabel Neo, stage management artfactory, set & prop coordination Jocelyn Cheng, surtitles Special thanks to the W!LD RICE team for their support and assistance in the preparation of La Voix Humaine.

B E HIND T HE S C E NE S

M A N AG E ME N T CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Mr Chng Hak-Peng CEO OFFICE

PROGRAMMES (SSO)

Ms Shirin Foo Mr Lim Yeow Siang Mr Edward Loh Mr Chris Yong

Ms Kua Li Leng (Head) Ms Teo Chew Yen Ms Jolene Yeo

PROGRAMMES (VCH)

Ms Michelle Yeo (Head) Ms Erin Tan ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

Mr Ernest Khoo (Head) Mr Chia Jit Min Ms Tan Wei Tian Stage Management Ms Kimberly Kwa (Stage Manager) Ms Chin Rosherna Mr Ramayah Elango Mr Md Fariz bin Samsuri Mr Radin Sulaiman bin Ali LIBRARY

Mr Lim Lip Hua Ms Priscilla Neo

Community Outreach Ms Kathleen Tan Ms Vanessa Lee Choral Programmes Ms Regina Lee Ms Whitney Tan DEVELOPMENT & PARTNERSHIPS

Ms Peggy Kek (Head) Corporate Communications Ms Leong Wenshan Development & Sponsorship Mr Anthony Chng Ms Nikki Chuang Mr Chris Yong

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS & CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Ms Cindy Lim (Head) Mr Chia Han-Leon Ms Myrtle Lee Ms Jana Loh Ms Hong Shu Hui Ms Melissa Tan Ms Cheryl Pek Ms Khairani Basman Ms Dacia Cheang Ms Nur Shafiqah bte Othman CORPORATE SERVICES

Mr Rick Ong (Head) Mr Alan Ong (Finance) Ms Goh Hoey Fen (Finance) Mr Md Zailani bin Md Said HUMAN RESOURCES & ADMINISTRATION

Mr Wu Sze Yuen (Head) Mr Desmen Low Ms Melissa Lee Ms Evelyn Siew

SSO.ORG.SG/VCHPRESENTS