La Voix Humaine

La Voix Humaine
By Francis Poulenc. Blanke Knochen Opera. Director: Kate Millett. Musical Director: James Penn. Venue: Carlton Club. September 26 – 30, 2017

The Melbourne Fringe Festival is always looking for quirky shows in unusual venues. This BK Opera delivered.

Set on the fourth floor of the Carlton Club, this one acter for one character was played out in four different rooms with four different sopranos. The rooms and audience were very small, so only an amateur group could have attempted this.

It was very well done. The first three rooms were draped in pink and the last in white, each with a pink telephone. There was a mattress or pillow to lie on and some soft toys. As the audience entered each room, they found the singer lying on the floor, very still, until the telephone rang.

Each of the four protagonists, Bethany Eloise, April Foster, Adelaide Greenaway and Lara Vosicano, was excellent in her own way. With the audience so close to the performers, it felt like we were eavesdropping on a very private telephone call as the character is being dumped by her lover. None of them dropped character for an instant.

The keyboard, played excellently by Pam Christie, moved along the connecting corridor. As the opera was sung in excellent French, sur-titles were displayed on the wall behind.

Another excellent offering from this new innovative company.

Graham Ford

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