ABSTRACT
In April 1923, composer André Caplet wrote to singer Claire Croiza, “out of all that I have written for you, nothing will have been as well suited to your nature, to your means.” The work he mentions is his song cycle Le Miroir de Jésus; in this chapter, Sarno responds to Caplet’s invitation to read this work vis-à-vis Croiza. The singer’s career stretched from before the Great War through the end of the interwar period. In the years after the war, she had begun to transition her career from opera prima donna to privileged interpreter of avant-garde works. During World War I, she forged relationships with enlisted artists, and after the armistice she maintained her connections by performing new pieces by Les Six and others. Sarno focuses on Croiza to create a clearer picture of Le Miroir as an interwar work. Through an account of her unpublished correspondence with Caplet, and a comparison of salient vocal passages in Le Miroir with repertory Croiza performed, recorded, and lectured about, Sarno argues that Croiza was not a mere interpreter of Le Miroir de Jésus, but that she was an artist who created it in ways shaped by the devastation of the war.
