La Jeune Fille à la fenêtre

Eugène Samuel-Holeman's La jeune fille à la fenêtre is a sung monodrama based on a text by the writer Camille Lemonnier, a major figure in Belgian literature. A contemporary of Debussy and a close friend of Maeterlinck, Samuel-Holeman plunges us into the Belgian fin de siècle, between Symbolism and Modernism. With its subdued tonalities, innovative harmonies and original instrumentation, this lyrical prose bears witness to the emancipation of musical language at the turn of the 19^th  and 20^th centuries.

A painting of souls steeped in the "tragedy of the mundane", the tragedy of a monotonous life going on smoothly, always the same, this little chamber opera is a remarkable work for the voice it gives to women at the end of the 19^th century, through empowerment and emancipation from the male fantasy, to express the reality of their own inner lives.