Of Love And Cake

Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appetit & Jean Cocteau’s Le Bel Indifférent
performed by contralto Emma Curtis, directed by Jorge Balça.
Saturday 24th October at 8pm and Sunday 25th October at 6pm at Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N 2AB

In this one-woman show for Bloomsbury Opera, contralto Emma Curtis masterfully takes on the vehicles of both opera and theatre, as singer, clown and dramatic actress. An evening of opera and drama, following the life of an on-screen TV comedienne home after the show, only her home is not so harmonious.

Le Bel Indifférent’, originally written for and performed by Édith Piaf, tells the story of a singer’s relationship with her younger lover, Émile; first her waiting, and then her futile attempts to engage in conversation. This is a play for two actors, but Émile is only seen, never heard. Distant voices over the phone contrast with the bel indifférent’s silence; they make his infidelities and disregard for her increasingly clear, ultimately turning her hopeless devotion to fatal despair.

This double-bill presentation imagines a public life for Cocteau’s characters to counterpoint their private tragedy. Lee Hoiby’s short opera ‘Bon Appétit!’ (with a libretto drawn verbatim from one of celebrity chef Julia Child’s TV shows) prefaces the Cocteau, so that we see the singer performing her one-woman comedy show, accompanied by Émile on the piano. Every night she caricatures the celebrity chef… but every night Émile disappears as she takes her bow, every night she returns home alone, and every night he comes back without a single word.

The larger-than-life gestures and playful characteristics of a clown performance jar with the cruel and deep-set emotional turmoil she lives in private. What can we ever know about the real person that lives after the applause is over?

First Performances: Saturday 24th October at 8pm, Sunday 25th October at 6pm

Performer: Emma Curtis, contralto
Director: Jorge Balça