Precious moments of the “Caesonia’s Lullaby’s” first rehearsal with Deidra Palmour, outstanding mezzo-soprano

How exciting for a composer, the first minutes of rehearsals of the newly written work are! Even knowing that in front of you is a performer of the highest caliber, you still don’t really understand what you can expect from sight-reading! To my great joy, Deidra Palmour, an outstanding mezzo-soprano, showed interest in several of my works, including the opera “Caligula’s Favorite Play”, freely based on Caligula by Albert Camus (© Editions Gallimard), I had just written. The librettist are Eric Nicolas and Igor Tsunsky. There is a role of Caesonia, the mistress and, subsequently, the wife of Caligula, who, being much older than the young emperor, so she also experienced maternal feelings for him. On the video excerpt is the very first approach to the “Caesonia’s Lullaby”. She performs it at the opera’s finale. Soon she will die at the hands of the emperor, and he himself will become the victim of his double – the actor who played his role in the play.