The premiere of La voix humaine / L’heure espagnole at Opera Zuid’s in-house theatre took place on 14 November 2020. Due to the government’s coronavirus measures, we instead streamed the premiere live via Classicnl’s Opera in Huis platform. We are currently unable to show the live stream. If this changes, information will be on this page.

Two women yearn for love. One wants her lover back; the other cheats. Plays with sensual or social subjects were fashionable in the early twentieth century, especially with prominent French composers. Francis Poulenc and Maurice Ravel set two famous pieces to music.

In Jean Cocteau’s one-act play La voix humaine, a woman calls her ex-lover. She cannot let him go. She flatters, despairs and blackmails in the hope he won’t hang up. From impatiently waiting for the man’s answer, Poulenc’s orchestral colour and vocal style convey Cocteau’s powerful writing through blissful memories to a desolate end.

To have spent time with your lover is colloquially known as a ‘Spanish hour’. Franc-Nohain’s comic play L’heure Espagnole is all about such hours. We visit a couple of clockmakers: Torquemada is a somewhat dull husband, Concepción a fiery Spaniard. Can the secret lovers satisfy Concepción’s craving? This opera reveals Ravel’s, himself of Basque-French origin, fascination for Spanish music and culture. The sounds evoke images of ticking clocks and Spanish dances.

For Béatrice Lachaussée, these one-act plays are two sides of the same coin. ‘Both operas portray a woman’s emotional development. In the first, she seems mainly a victim. Concepción enjoys life, but she too runs up against a wall of frustration and unfulfilled desires.’

La voix humaine / L’heure espagnole is performed in French with Dutch subtitles.

Download the programme booklet here.

La voix humaine / L’heure espagnole is a co-production with NOF – Nouvel Opéra de Friborg, Switzerland.