Natalie Lewis was wrestling with a Poulenc masterpiece called “Tu vois le feu du soir.” It’s his longest song and a bear to perform—somewhat rambling and hard to organize. And absolutely ravishing. There are two ways to approach it: to break it down and find the color for each image in the song (and there are a lot of them), or go into a kind of trance state and sing it like an oracle, building it in one long arc. We’d already done a fair amount of method #1 on Monday and Tuesday. Bénédicte is the pianist for this piece, so I was watching Natalie from out front. It dawned on me that she was somewhat overwhelmed by the welter of details in Paul Eluard’s poem. I could also see that Béné’s energy was sagging and she needed backup (as I would later on, when she returned the favor). So I took up the reins and proposed the broader approach, using Poulenc’s music as a kind of prayer or incantation. It worked for Natalie, who began to channel the majesty of Jessye Norman as she worked her way through this chef d’oeuvre.

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