I rather think Poulenc's homosexuality was a known & open secret for a
long time before 1963. His queer circle in the 20s included Cocteau &
Radiguet (who is obviously represented by the young poet who gets run
over by Death's motorcyclist in *Orphée*), had an open love affair with
a painter, Chanelaire, etc. I love his songs, & *Les Biches* is the most
marvellous evocation of the wild young things of Diaghilev's 20s. His
song "C" is one of the most moving evocations of the losses war
engenders, a powerful quiet masterpiece in about 3 minutes. I will now
listen again to Régine Crespin's great recording.
mj
Ken Wolman wrote:
> MJ Walker wrote:
>
>> Actually, Ken, Fauré was not so religious as all that; I quote from a
>> convenient website
>> (http://members.macconnect.com/users/j/jimbob/classical/Faure_Requiem.html):
>>
>> >Fauré spent much of his life in the service of the church, but his
>> personal views on religion were unconventional at best, downright
>> cynical or agnostic at worst. These are his thoughts on spirituality
>> in the /Requiem/:"Everything I managed to entertain in the way of
>> religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated
>> from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal
>> rest."< Nox est perpetua una dormienda. And Verdi was an atheist, I
>> believe. Berlioz wasn't too croyant, either, so that more or less
>> wraps up 19th C requiems of genius...(Well, OK, Cherubini, Dvorak...)
>
>
> No surprise. Spirituality ain't religion, but religion can be useful
> to spirituality. I'm not sure what the hell Verdi was. Probably
> started out Catholic, but the way I heard it, his out-in-the-open
> relationship with Strepponi alienated him from the Church. The
> Crusades that Verdi showed in I Lombardi (pre-Strepponi) look like the
> greatest thing since sliced bread: Muslims being converted, Christians
> taking solemn vows, etc., etc. It's a good thing he didn't write
> about Simon de Montfort and those nasty evil Cathars:-). Even after
> he caught heat for living unmarried with Peppina, it is hard to read
> his attitude. Forza del Destino has Padre Guardiano, a bit
> monochromatic but undeniably decent and faith-filled. But Aida has
> Ramfis the high priest, a real swine.
> Francois Poulenc I gather really WAS a committed Catholic who returned
> to the Church in the late 1930s. His Dialogues of the Carmelites is a
> difficult opera based on the (really happened) martyrdom of a convent
> of Carmelite nuns in 1793. It is somewhat hard going until the end:
> the Salve Regina sung by 17 women whose voices disappear one at a time
> as they are beheaded, the diminishing song punctuated by the
> deliberately amplified thud of the guillotine. Later, Poulenc adapted
> Cocteau's La Voix Humaine for his favorite soprano, Denise Duval, who
> had created Blanche de la Force in Dialogues. The punch line: after
> Poulenc died in 1963, someone is supposed to have asked Duval--an
> extraordinarily beautiful woman--whether the rumors were true, that
> she and Poulenc had been lovers. "I made the offer," she said, "but
> he liked men." I wonder how the RCC hierarchy reacted when Ms. Duval
> dropped that into the conversation....
>
> Ken
>
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