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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

La Voix Humaine

May 4–5, 2022
Münchner Philharmoniker Kellerstraße 4 81667

She sings and she conducts, both at the same time? It’s true that such stunts can seem vainglorious, but not when the artist in question is the Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan. Her video-enhanced account of Francis Poulenc’s sudsy one-woman opera puts conventional renditions to shame: rather than wallow in ambience, Hannigan distills soul into gesture. As on a previous occasion in Paris, she rounds out the program with Richard Strauss’s late, death-haunted Metamorphosen, shot through with themes from Beethoven symphonies and other canonical works. —Matthew Gurewitsch