Helen’s Silences: The Gendering of Voice Pitch and Narrative Structure in Lili Boulanger’s Faust et Hélène

Abstract

Lili Boulanger won the Prix de Rome in 1913 with her cantata Faust et Hélène, a setting of the compulsory text for the competition. Boulanger’s setting is often seen as derivatively Wagnerian; but how might Boulanger be seen to go beyond such categorization, to subvert some of the meanings inherent in this kind of tonality and harmonic language? Three issues offer a new reading and a new performance practice for the work: the poem itself and its links to Goethe’s earlier work, Boulanger’s modes of behaviour during the competition, and the ramifications of gendered language on her setting.