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elodie olson-coons
A feature by Elodie Olson-Coons
I first wrote to Claude Ber when I became acquainted with her startling, fragmentary meditation on grief, La mort n’est jamais comme (Death Is Never Like), which won the Prix international de poésie francophone Yvan-Goll in 2004. The book already had an English translator, she wrote back, but perhaps I’d be interested in her latest work? A thin cream paperback from Éditions de l’Amandier came in the mail shortly afterwards, signed. . .
Cela fait bientôt trois ans maintenant que je travaille à la traduction d’extraits d’Épître Langue Louve (2015). Dans cette œuvre, l’écriture de Ber est dense d’allusions et de clartés soudaines, comme une carotte de forage de la nature humaine; poésie presque concrète le temps d’un vers, la syntaxe se fait jeu au suivant.
Pendant toute cette période, Claude Ber a patiemment répondu à mes questions de traduction, toujours avec amabilité, érudition et juste une pointe d’ironie, en juste reconnaissance de la futilité agréable de l’exercice. Cet échange, mené par courriel, s’inscrit dans la même tradition. . .
A feature by Elodie Olson-Coons
. . . Being a woman conductor and being a singer who is also a conductor are rare enough occurrences individually. A woman who conducts and sings at once, in the same performances, and to rave reviews? A rara avis indeed. Watching her take on this incredibly balancing act, one is made aware once more of her sheer physical and mental strength. Her arms are another voice: trained; rippling with strength and emotion—yet another stark marker of the sheer discipline with which she approaches her work. At times, her love of a challenge seems to go even beyond discipline. Writing about the difficulties of playing Lulu, she also writes about her enjoyment of those difficulties: “It hurt like hell and I loved it,” she says of her first time in pointe shoes. “I couldn't wait to lace up every morning. I loved that a doctor had to come to my dressing room after the second performance because as soon as I was offstage I could barely walk.” . . .
