Vox Humana at Severance Music Center

POULENC  La voix humaine

J.S. BACH  Concerto from Komm, Jesu, komm

USTVOLSKAYA  Symphony No. 5, “Amen”

J.S. BACH  Aria from Komm, Jesu, komm

R. STRAUSS  Symphonic Fantasy on Die Frau ohne Schatten

The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
Sarah Aristidou, soprano
Tony Sias, narrator
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

The full range of human emotion is on display in this unique program curated by Franz Welser-Möst as part of the 2025 Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival. The evening kicks off with the crushing emotional depth of Poulenc’s La voix humaine, a gripping monodrama starring French soprano Sarah Aristidou. Interwoven with a sacred motet by Bach, Ustvolskaya’s somber and haunting Fifth Symphony premiered months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and is scored for only five solo instruments and narrator. The program concludes with Richard Strauss’s Symphonic Fantasy on Die Frau ohne Schatten, an opera he considered his “most important work.” 

This program’s Concert Preview lectures will be presented by James Wilding, Professor of Theory & Composition, University of Akron.