The Human Voice / The Seven Deadly Sins
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One woman, one journey, two operas...
The Seven Deadly Sins, with music by Kurt Weill and libretto by Bertolt Brecht, is a biting and sharp-edged satire of ambition and self-betrayal, set to a score steeped in Weimar cabaret and 1930s American jazz. Anna is split into two halves of one soul as her family sends her on a seven-year odyssey through the cities of America, chasing the money for a house back home.
The Human Voice, with music by Francis Poulenc and libretto by Jean Cocteau, is a harrowing one-woman opera, unfolding through a single, unbroken phone call that becomes the last conversation of a love affair. Alone in her apartment, Elle waits for her former lover to ring, and when he finally does, the small talk gives way to something far darker. Poulenc’s score moves with the broken rhythm of speech itself, tender and devastating by turns. As the call falters and reconnects, one question presses harder than any other: how do you say goodbye to someone who is already gone?
Performed together, these works trace a continuous psychological portrait of a woman pushed to her limits — one through the cities of an American odyssey, the other through the silences of a single phone line. Both pair celebrated composers with extraordinary literary collaborators: Weill with Brecht, and Poulenc with Cocteau.
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