Poulenc: La voix humaine - L'histoire de Babar

Words drew the best out of Poulenc. His songs, choral pieces and operas mold themselves to his carefully chosen texts with affecting simplicity and sensitivity to language and to the personalities of his singers. Among the most dedicated of his interpreters was the soprano Denise Duval, for whom Poulenc conceived La voix humaine in 1958 to a monodrama written by Jean Cocteau 30 years earlier and revised by the playwright for the lyric stage. Alone in her salon, a woman – unnamed – speaks to her former lover for the last time. She calls him, the line breaks, he replies, but we hear only her side of the story: anguished, pleading, honest, self-deceiving, unbearably touching. Daniela Mazzucato made her La Scala debut in 1973, singing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro under the baton of Claudio Abbado. Since then she has appeared at the world’s great opera houses singing major soubrette and lyric-soprano roles such as Musetta opposite Mirella Freni; Oscar in Un ballo in maschera conducted agai