Three wishes for La voix humaine:
1. Everyone should see this production twice at least. Once you know the ending they've given it, there's a whole new chilling layer to it.
2. Film it, now. It matters, it's magic, and in a week it will be gone.
3. Turn off the damned surtitles. People are reading them out of habit and they're missing out on all the details and the beauty below. Without them, everybody would cope, her diction is flawless. (While they're at it, they can get rid of the surtitles for Il Signor Bruschino too, I think we can do without the embarrasing translation of the libretto into 'idiomatic' English Australian.)
But apparently not everybody appreciates this wonder as I do. Overheard leaving the theatre tonight:
HER: Well I thought it was very dramatic.
HIM: Yes it was, but I wanted to hear her sing.
The ingratitude. You heard her sing. No, poverino, no 'O mio babbino caro', no 'Vilja-Lied' for you but you heard her sing. If you don't realise that, you don't deserve to have any wishes granted, let alone that one.
And on ingratitude...the theatre was quite frighteningly empty tonight. Most of the left hand side of the stalls unsold. How could anybody want to be anywhere else? But I, at least, am not ungrateful. I took advantage, I moved at interval, and so watched Yvonne tonight from Row D instead of Row R. Which among other things put me directly in line for that terrifying, beautifully bloodcurdling high C. Again, my gratitude knows no bounds.
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