La Voix Humaine – Claire Booth & Christopher Glynn

A voice. A telephone. A love affair unravelling in real time.

Soprano Claire Booth and GRAMMY-winning pianist Christopher Glynn present an intense, semi-staged performance of La Voix Humaine, Francis Poulenc’s searing operatic monodrama.

Set to Jean Cocteau’s ground-breaking text, La Voix Humaine places the audience at the heart of a private conversation — a woman alone, speaking on the telephone to the lover who is leaving her. What unfolds is an emotionally devastating portrait of love, loss and psychological fracture.

Programme

• Poulenc – La Dame de Monte Carlo (7’)

• Poulenc – Toréador (2’)

• Poulenc – Corcardes (6’)

• Durey – Trois Chansons Basques (4’)

• Auric – Huit Poèmes de Jean Cocteau (19’)

• Milhaud – Trois Poèmes de Jean Cocteau, Op.59 (3’)

• Poulenc – La Voix Humaine (40’) – semi-staged

The evening opens with a vivid sequence of French songs inspired by Cocteau’s poetry, gradually dissolving the boundaries between recital and opera. By the time La Voix Humaine begins, the audience has been drawn into a world where music, theatre and spoken intimacy become inseparable.

Why this performance is special

• A rare semi-staged presentation of Poulenc’s most intimate opera

• One of the most psychologically intense works in 20th-century music

• Performed by one of the UK’s leading dramatic sopranos

• Ideal for audiences interested in opera, theatre, modernism and French culture

Reviews

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
“Booth’s expressiveness is so intense, the colours of the voice so beautiful… she makes it wholly unforgettable.”
— The Guardian

Festival context

This performance forms part of the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival, presented by Music in the Round — bringing world-class song, chamber music and cross-artform performance to Sheffield.

🎟 Tickets & full details:
https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/la-voix-humaine