ABSTRACT
The years leading up to the Great War were given over to two large vocal projects: in 1906 Fauré began the song cycle La Chanson d’Ève (completed in 1910), and in 1907 the opera Pénélope (performed for the first time in 1913). The confident grandeur of the La Chanson d’Ève would almost certainly have been inconceivable if the composer had not been engaged simultaneously in writing a work on a larger, operatic scale, and on so broadly human and generous a theme as the steadfast faithfulness of Penelope awaiting the return of Ulysses.
