Le Rêve de Cléopâtre

Born in 1858, she was one of the first women admitted to the composition classes of the Paris Conservatoire. There she studied with César Franck, Jules Massenet, and Ernest Guiraud, each of whom recognized her talent. In 1881, however, she left the Conservatoire. Her family opposed the romance she developed there with poet and singer Amédée-Louis Hettich. A more “suitable” marriage was arranged with wealthy industrialist Albert Domange, a twice-widowed father of several children. The marriage provided Bonis with the security of a bourgeois household, within which she balanced domestic life and creative work, though she was forced to set her artistic ambitions aside for several years. 

A prolific composer, Bonis left nearly 200 works, including piano pieces (her primary instrument), chamber music, organ works, and both sacred and secular vocal music. Orchestral writing came later in her career, as she had not studied it formally. She refined her orchestration with Charles Koechlin, a master of the craft. She died in Paris in 1937. 

Le Rêve de Cléopâtre (Cleopatra’s Dream), composed in 1909, is part of an orchestral triptych titled Trois femmes de légende, itself belonging to a larger cycle devoted to legendary heroines (Mélisande, Ophelia, Desdemona, Salome…). Tinged with orientalism, dreamy and languid, it evokes in a deeply personal manner the character and tragic destiny of Egypt’s last queen, a figure sure to spark the composer’s imagination.