Ned Rorem Joins Fete With Music for Cocteau Poem

The centenary celebration of French film-maker, writer and artist Jean Cocteau, begun in February at UC Irvine, will continue in Los Angeles with the premiere of American composer Ned Rorem’s setting of a Cocteau poem.

Rorem’s “Anna la Bonne” will receive its first performance at 8 p.m. next Wednesday at the Bing Theater on the USC campus. Soprano Jennifer Trost will be soloist. Douglas Fisher will be the piano accompanist.

Rorem will accompany five other of his works on the program. The composer, generally acknowledged as one of the preeminent American art-song writers of his generation, won the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1976, ironically for the all-instrumental “Air Music.”

Additional events on the USC arm of the centenary celebration will include:

- April 14, School of Music, Room 106, 11 a.m.: “The Dimensions of a Poet,” a retrospective lecture by Tony Clark, executive director of the Severin Wunderman Museum in Irvine. The museum is reputed to be the largest repository of Cocteau works in the world and is coordinating American participation in centenary events.

Clark will be followed by USC music professor Frans Boerlage, who will lecture on upcoming campus performances of three operas with librettos by Cocteau: Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex,” Milhaud’s “Le Pauvre Matelot” and Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine.”

- April 20 to 23, Bing Theater, 8 p.m.: Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex,” Milhaud’s “Le Pauvre Matelot” and Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine.” The productions will be conducted by Murry Sidlin. They will be co-produced by the Severin Wunderman Museum and the USC School of Music.

The Cocteau Festival will continue with other music and theater events presented over three weekends in June at Barnsdahl Park in Los Angeles.

For information, call (714) 472-1138.