THE LETTERS OF MADEMOISELLE C.
A semi-staged dramatic song cycle based upon the life and letters of Camille Claudel

Text and music: Dalit Warshaw

Featuring:

Nancy Allen Lundy, soprano
Dalit Warshaw, piano

Beth Greenberg, director

A protégée of Auguste Rodin, Claudel was among the very few to blaze new pathways for women sculptors and gain recognition, flouting the bourgeois ideals that had determined the proper course of a woman’s life. Claudel was termed a “Woman of Genius,” yet her fall from grace was a disturbing and tragic ending to a young, brilliant career too soon cut short, as she fell into disrepute and ultimately into what her family characterized as madness. In this cycle, Camille Claudel's story is narrated through a series of five musical "letters," each addressed to a different significant figure in the artist’s life.

The text is significantly inspired from the words of Camille, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, and her brother, the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel.

This premiere performance will be preceded by solo piano works of French composers relevant to the time and place of the story: Gabriel Faure, Germaine Tailleferre, and Debussy, a one-time friend of Camille whose bronze copy of her sculpture, "La Valse," was long-situated atop his piano.

A reception will follow the performance.