IL SEGRETO DI SUSANNA
Despite being worthy of recognition, Il segreto di Susanna, like the majority of Wolf- Ferrari´s oeuvre, is relatively unknown. This intermezzo is an example of the composer´s eclectic (but not necessarily diffuse) style. The piece also constitutes a musical, structural (a soprano, a baritone, and a mute actor) and plot-line homage to 18th- Century Neapolitan opera, ushered in by Pergolesi with his La serva padrona, and to its descendents.

Il segreto di Susanna is one of the most hilarious works in the history of opera. The plot revolves around a recently married couple: the man sees lovers on every corner and hates tobacco; the woman is an avid smoker. The misunderstanding occurs during a conversation in which Susanna, thinking that they are speaking of smoking, reassures her husband that all women do it, even his mother. The husband is obviously shocked, thinking that they are speaking of the habit of taking lovers, and disapprovingly disagrees with the argument that this is commonplace behaviour for women.

Exquisite, melodic, fluid, Il segreto di Susanna makes plain the magnificent “madness” of Wolf-Ferrari, whose music at times calls to mind Leoncavallo, Cimarosa, R. Strauss, or Wagner.
 

LA VOIX HUMAINE
Francis Poulenc´s last lyrical work, with text by Jean Cocteau, is an example of the seamless integration of music and text on stage.  Every movement, every word, each one of the orchestra´s responses together constitute a monologue (or false dialogue) that explores the soul of the protagonist.  Perhaps the most interesting here is the use of circumlocution as a recourse in the context of a rhetoric in which every word is charged with an essential discursive value and in which each repetition uncovers new details about the only character on the stage.

What La voix humaine proposes is deceptively simple: as waiting turns to hope, as hopelessness becomes desperation, the drama of a woman unravels: she has been abandoned by her (invisible and inaudible) lover, with whom she maintains a forty- minute telephone conversation. It is through this conversation that we begin to understand the causes of the demise of the relationship, and at the same time the protagonist’s interior geography is unveiled to us. The telephone is the only tie that binds these two people, as well as the last hope of “the voice.”

The telephone serves as the perfect tool through which Cocteau can explore the necessity and practice of human communication and La voix humaine is the account of his ideas, sensations and conclusions on the subject.