French evening with colourful world soprano

The Little Suite, or Petite Suite as it is called in French, is a real evergreen when it comes to the classical repertoire. Debussy’s short orchestral suite in four movements is immediately recognizable. Even if you don’t know the title, you like to hum along with the rocking, light and inimitable melodies.

The same applies to Gabriel Fauré’s orchestral suite Pelléas et Mélisande – originally a scenic piece of music based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama from 1892 of the same name. A play about repressed passion and unrequited love that has come to inspire a number of prominent fin-de-siècle composers, ranging from Debussy to Sibelius already mentioned in the programme. At the turn of the century, Fauré transformed the songs into an orchestral suite. Mélisande’s song was deleted, the third movement, Sicilienne, with its winding beautiful flute melody, has come to be perhaps the most famous, still beloved by many, to this day.

After the intermission, it is time for the evening’s main guest, the French coloratura soprano Patricia Petibon. This evening she offers French 20th-century opera in the best style. La Voix humaine by Francis Poulenc is an act opera based on Jean Cocteau’s famous play Vox Humana, and portrays a woman who says goodbye to her lover over the phone. A perfect work for Petibon that combines dramatic nerve, vocal expression and technical ability. The conductor of the evening is the house’s own Eduardo Strausser.