Whilst the enchantress Alcina and her island of love are fictional, Sappho is a historical figure. Born on the island of Lesbos around 630-570 BC, she was revered since antiquity as one of the great voices of poetry. However, only fragments remain of her hymns to Eros and her verses dedicated to the beauty of her companions. These fragments fuelled, particularly in the 19^th century, powerful imaginings centred on liberated love and female desire. Pierre Louÿs thus invented Bilitis, a supposed pupil of Sappho, whose poems he published as a ‘translation’—a literary mystification in which a man wrote erotic texts behind the mask of an ancient poetess.

The Songs of Bilitis inspired Debussy, but also his contemporary composer Rita Strohl. Brenda Poupard, who performed last season in Bluebeard’s Castle, juxtaposes these songs with melodies by Augusta Holmès, a composer and poet. In their respective cycles, Strohl and Holmès explore the many facets of desire: attachment, intimacy, intoxication, but also obsession and grief, right up to the dizzing sensation of loss. By offering an unvarnished portrayal of the violence that can occur within a relationship, as well as the forms of resistance it provokes, they show how two people can love each other passionately just as much as they can hurt one another.

As a contemporary counterpoint, the pianist and composer Kaoli Ono, who is also performing in this concert, presents her Five Wakas. In these pieces, she sets to music the love poems of a 9^th-century geisha who, in the miniature form of the waka, describes a night spent waiting for her lover.