Opera captures poets' stormy relationship

One of the literary world's strangest and most passionate love affairs has become the subject of a new chamber opera that has its world premiere Jan. 7 -- the relationship between the French poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

Intermezzo: New England Chamber Opera opens its third season with "Verlaine and Rimbaud" by David Paul Gibson in the David Friend Recital Hall in the Berklee College of Music at 8 p.m. on the 7th, with a repeat performance Jan. 9 at 4 p.m.

Verlaine left his pregnant wife to run off with his wild young protg; their stormy relationship came to an end when Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the hand and went to prison. This is the part of the story that became the subject of a 1995 movie, " Total Eclipse," which starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud.

Baritone John Whittlesey, founder of the company, commissioned the opera from Gibson, a longtime friend and former apprentice of composer Gian-Carlo Menotti at the Spoleto Festival. Gibson came to direct Menotti's "The Medium" for the company last year.

"I asked him if he would write something for us," Whittlesey says, "and after we had thrashed it out a bit, we decided to concentrate on the life and works of these two nutty French poets."

The one-hour opera for four singers accompanied by piano and violin traces the central period of the relationship and the poems that came out of it. The libretto incorporates seven or eight of their poems in new English translations and quotes the "Cantique de Jean Racine" by Gabriel Faure in a dream sequence.

The performers will precede the opera with a group of songs by Faure, Debussy, and Britten on texts by the poets. Whittlesey sings Verlaine with Aaron Sheehan as Rimbaud.

Later in the season, the company presents a double bill of Weill's "The Seven Deadly Sins" with Krista River and Seymour Barab's "A Game of Chance" (May); September brings Menotti's "The Old Maid and the Thief."