"Voices from heaven and voices of the heart" by Sandrine Piau

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The recital is a moment of special intimacy that lays us singers bare
through both our choices and our interpretation. Its often lengthy
gestation reflects our experience, our affin-ities, our encounters.

The strange distinction in French between ‘voie’ (path) and ‘voix’
(voice) is unsettling. Man seeks a path, a meaning for his life, and
gives voice to his questionings.

High voices generally symbolise that distant celestial sphere where
birds and angels mingle. Their purity allows us, fleetingly, to forget
human imperfection and fragility. I try to understand the alternating
feelings of fascination and rejection such voices awaken in me. No
cloud of suffering must tarnish their brightness, and their perfection
denies our fallibility. As a marvellous corollary of this, they snatch one
from earthly gravity and sustain the crazy dream of flying, which at
last seems possible.

My aim today has been to reconcile these voices from heaven with
those of our heart in a ballet emphasising the antagonisms that rack
us. The radiance of the triumphant angel is echoed by Cleopatra’s
sufferings at death’s door. Beauty yields to time, but time seems to
stand still for an instant, thanks to music . . .

Handel left us a considerable body of work in which it is a privilege
to look for answers that do not exist.