You are my only reason for breathing

The first in a (really very) occasional series of opera reviews...

I have actually already started watched an opera (Cosi Fan Tutti) with a view to reviewing it and I was actually quite enjoying it, but then I got distracted by something shiny and have yet to come back to it.  So why would I randomly pick an opera which was on BBC2 last night (apart from, you know, generally being pretty random).  Well, it's La Voix Humaine by Francis Poulenc - which, if you've been paying attention (and I'm sure you have been), you'll know was based on the play of the same name by Jean Cocteau which me and the lovely Mrs Reed went and saw recently with Ruth Wilson in.  And, even better, it was less than hour long (and included seven minutes at the beginning where they have a good old chat about it).

And well, at the most basic level, it's pretty much the same as the play - one woman wandering around her apartment chatting away on the phone, except that in this case most of the chatting happens to done in song.  Danielle de Niese does a great job because the camera is on her for pretty much the entire time and there's some heavy lifting to do on the acting front as well as the singing front.  Apparently she's a very cheery individual, which makes her performance even more impressive because she's not cheery in this - I actually thought she did a better job on the hysterical front than Ruth did, but this will all be down to direction (I'm sure Ruth is perfectly capable of being hysterical if required).  The way it was filmed gave her plenty of opportunities to stop and remind herself of the words, but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she could belt the whole thing out on stage if required.  

The main difference between the opera and the play was the ending - the play had a much more definite ending with her jumping out of a window whereas the opera ends with her hanging up, although I have a sneaking suspicion you're supposed to assume the end result is the same.  I wasn't entirely convinced that "conversation as opera" entirely worked for me, but I also appreciate that I'm not exactly an expert on the matter - the music that plinked and plonked away in the background (by the Royal Opera House's orchestra) seemed nice enough though.  I'm sure they'll be made up that I've gone so overboard with my praise for their contribution here as well.

In the little chat at the beginning they make the point that the whole thing is very French but, even so, the opera doesn't include some bits that Poulenc deemed to be too hysterical and I do think this helped in toning down some of the wilder aspects of the play.  Additionally, this particular opera setting was much more natural and less "theatrical" and minimalist than the play setting, which provided greater context for me.  And, one other thing, the opera setting chose to keep her on the phone for almost the entire time so it was always clear who she was speaking to (even if she swaps phones halfway through for no obvious reason) - I wouldn't say all of this makes the whole thing any more understandable, but it does make it less confusingly obtuse (even though, or perhaps because, it was in a different language with subtitles).  Furthermore, the opera used flashbacks to provide further context for the dialogue but I appreciate this is harder to do on stage so I'm going to discount that difference (but again, it helped!).

Overall, it's very much a case of apples and oranges so I don't think it's fair to compare the two, but, like the play, I found this more of an interesting experience rather than actively enjoying it.  I did find the opera less confusing, but it's more than possible that just because I know (a lot!) more about the whole thing now than when I went to the theatre.  I'd also say that forty-five minutes felt a better running time and it certainly helped that I was able to pause it on iPlayer to a) see how much time was left and b) leave the room to get snacks (both of which are somewhat problematic in the theatre).

If you want to watch it, it's on iPlayer - I can't say I overly recommend it, but it was personally interesting to see after the play.  And yes, I really think I'm going to have to watch Pedro Almodovar's version with Tilda Swinton in it now.  Not that I expect I'm going to understand it.