La voix humaine

Under the new TRANSLAB-label Muziektheater Transparant offers development and growth opportunities for young singers and instrumentalists. Transparant wants to focus more than ever on young people as stage artists finding their way in the world of opera and musical theatre. Projects by young creators or companies just starting out will be given a place to rehearse and to develop with Transparant as a sounding board during their quest.

In The Human Voice (original title La Voix Humaine), a woman sits at a telephone. From the story she tells we learn that she is grieving for a lost love. The day before he is to marry, she has a conversation with him that is repeatedly interrupted. She creates a web of words and it is as if she lives inside it. They give voice to her fear, her loneliness, her longing, her obsessions. But although she says a lot, even more remains unsaid. They become entangled in a play of lies and confessions in which she tries to win him back. Around her she creates an obscure environment, as if she is staging her own death. The telephone to which she clings herself turns out to be merely shaky technology by which her beloved slips away and disappears. The voice she is hearing lets her wander through the past and her desire until the connection is cut off.

Naomi Beeldens is a veteran of many Transparant projects. She performed in Porselain and was for many years involved in the youth operas. She chose this intriguing masterpiece by Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau as the starting point for her graduation project at the Conservatoire in Antwerp. The pianist and composer Jeroen Malaise is her musical partner in the project. Wouter Van Looy is directing her in her wild monologue.