TUESDAY October 11, 7:30 p.m. (finishing around 10:45 p.m.)

DIALOGUES OF THE CARMELITES

An opera in three acts

by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Libretto by Francis Poulenc, after a scheme by novelist George Bernanos

First performed La Scala, Milan, in January 1957

Cast

Blanche de la Force

Mother Marie, assistant prioress

Madame Lidoine, new prioress

Sister Constance de St Denis , young nun

Madame de Croissy, prioress

Chevalier de la Force

Marquis de la Force

Father Confessor of the Convent

Mother Jeanne de l'Enfant, dean

Sister Mathilde

First Commissioner

Second Commissioner

Gaoler

Patricia Petibon, soprano

Sophie Koch, mezzo-soprano

V�ronique Gens, soprano

Sandrine Piau, soprano

Rosalind Plowright, contralto

Topi Lehtipuu, tenor

Philippe Rouillon, baritone

Fran�ois Piolino, tenor

Annie Vavrille, contralto

Sophie Pondjiclis, mezzo-soprano

J�r�my Duffau, baritone

Yuri Kissin, bass

Matthieu L�croart, baritone

Production

A 2013 production from the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris
in association with the Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie, Brussels

Direction and stage design by Olivier Py

Costumes by Pierre-André Weitz

Lighting design by Bertrand Killy

Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
conducted by Jérémie Rhorer

Synopsis

Note: Although set by Poulenc in the context of the French Revolution, Olivier Py's design and the costuming evoke the first half of the 20th century rather than the era of the Revolution itself.

ACT 1

In troubled times, the pathologically timid Blanche de la Force decides to retreat from the world and enter a Carmelite monastery. The Mother Superior informs her that the Carmelite Order is not a refuge; it is the duty of the nuns to guard the Order, not the other way around.

In the convent, the jolly Sister Constance tells Blanche (to her consternation) that she has had a dream that the two of them will die young together. The prioress, who is dying, commits Blanche to the care of Mother Marie. The Mother Superior passes away in great agony, shouting in her delirium that despite her long years of service to God, He has abandoned her. Blanche and Mother Marie, who witness her death, are shaken.

ACT 2

Sister Constance remarks to Blanche that the prioress' death seemed unworthy of her, and speculates that she had been given the wrong death, as one might be given the wrong coat in a cloakroom. She said that perhaps someone else will find death surprisingly easy. Perhaps we die not for ourselves alone, but for each other.

Blanche's brother, the Chevalier de la Force, arrives to announce that their father thinks Blanche should withdraw from the monastery, since she is not safe there (being both an aristocrat and the member of a religious community, at a time of anti-aristocrat and anti-clericalism in the rising revolutionary tides). Blanche refuses, saying that she has found happiness in the Carmelite Order. Later she admits to Mother Marie that it is fear (or the fear of fear itself, as the Chevalier expresses it) that keeps her from leaving.

The chaplain announces that he has been forbidden to preach. The nuns remark on how fear rules the country, and no one has the courage to stand up for the priests. Sister Constance asks, "Are there no men left to come to the aid of the country?" "When priests are lacking, martyrs are superabundant," replies the new Mother Superior. Mother Marie says that the Carmelites can save France by giving their lives, but the Mother Superior corrects her: it is not permitted to choose to become a martyr; God decides who will be martyred.

A police officer arrives and announces to the community that the Legislative Assembly has nationalised the monastery and its property, and the nuns must give up their religious habits. When Mother Marie acquiesces, the officer taunts her for being eager to dress like everyone else. She replies that the nuns will continue to serve, no matter how they are dressed. "The people have no need of servants," proclaims the officer haughtily. "No, but they have a great need for martyrs," responds Mother Marie. "In times like these, death is nothing," he says. "Life is nothing," she answers, "when it is so debased."

ACT 3

In the absence of a new prioress, Mother Marie proposes that the nuns take a vow of martyrdom. However, all must agree, or Mother Marie will not insist. A secret vote is held; there is one dissenting voice. Sister Constance declares that she was the dissenter, and that she has changed her mind, so the vow can proceed.

Blanche runs away from the monastery, and Mother Marie goes to look for her, finding her in her father's library. Her father has been guillotined, and Blanche has been forced to serve her former servants.

The nuns are all arrested and condemned to death, but Mother Marie is away (with Blanche, presumably) at the time. The chaplain tells Mother Marie when they meet again that since God has chosen to spare her, she cannot voluntarily become a martyr by joining the others in prison.

The nuns one by one slowly mount the scaffold, singing the "Salve Regina� ("Hail, Holy Queen"). At the last minute, Blanche appears, to Constance's joy, and joins the condemned community. Having seen all the other nuns executed, as she mounts the scaffold, Blanche sings the final stanza of the "Veni Creator Spiritus�, the Catholic hymn traditionally used when taking vows in a religious community and offering one's life to God.

NEXT MONTH: Tuesday November 8, 7.30 pm

Show Boat

A leading opera house presenting the first great American musical? San Francisco's exuberant 2015 production hits all the marks in this stylish re-imagining of the work described as �an enduring love story set against a backdrop of racial prejudice.�

Join us in this wonderful ending to our year of outstanding productions.

Click here for a preview video
of this production

Breathtaking

Poulenc�s opera about religious persecution in dark times has rarely been more devastating than in Olivier Py�s production for Paris�s Th��tre des Champs-Elys�es last December.

Breathtakingly conducted by J�r�mie Rohrer, it boasts one of the finest casts ever assembled for the piece.

Patricia Petibon gives the performance of a lifetime as Blanche, fleeing from the world into a convent, only to be faced with spiritual and political realities she can no longer avoid.

Sandrine Piau�s Constance, Sophie Koch�s Mother Marie and V�ronique Gens�s Madame Lidoine are equally outstanding, and even though Rosalind Plowright, as terminally ill Madame de Croissy, can be shrill, her performance has a dramatic veracity that is disturbing in the extreme.

Py�s interpretation � updated to the mid-20th century yet never identifying which political system lurks beyond the convent doors � is deeply humane, but also teases out the complex theological issues that lurk behind the work.

Long sceptical about the piece, I was completely won over � the highest compliment I can pay it.

- Tim Ashley in The Guardian December 2014

Poulenc retells a true tale of martyrdom

On the evening of July 17, 1794, at the height of the Great Terror of the French Revolution, 16 Carmelite nuns were guillotined in the Place de la Nation in Paris. Their story is re-told by Francis Poulenc in his 1957 opera, Dialogues of the Carmelites.

This community of religious women refused to obey the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the Revolutionary government mandating suppression of their monastery.

Martyred by the infamous Committee of Public Safety, their remains are now in a mass grave at the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. There you will find a discreet plaque with all of their names listed.

Poulenc combines music, song, and prayer in a dramatic portrayal of self-sacrifice. But the actual story does not end with the opera�s powerful closing scene in which the Carmelites sing Salve Regina as, one by one, the blade falls on each of their necks.

The rest of the story is told by William Bush, a professor of French literature and an Eastern Orthodox Christian, in To Quell the Terror: The True Story of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compi�gne (1999). Ten days after the beheadings, Robespierre fell and was executed in the same manner as the nuns. The Terror ended. Post hoc ergo propter hoc? From a purely logical perspective, a causal connection cannot be proven. Yet, this story of voluntary sacrifice, and the bringing of relative peace to France and the Church, challenges even the rational mind.

Poulenc mixes fact and fiction, especially with the introduction of Blanche de la Force, a young aristocratic girl who seeks to escape her fear, angst really, of life by means of a vocation to the Carmelites. Such a motivation would normally not be recognized as a legitimate reason for a religious vocation. But Poulenc has his reasons for this character in his story.

Blanche was originally the creation of a German writer, Gertrud von Le Fort, in her novel The Song at the Scaffold (1933) written as the shadow of Nazism was spreading over her country. This might account for the great fear driving her heroine�s actions. It was left to the great French Catholic writer, George Bernanos, author of Diary of a Country Priest (1936), to incorporate Blanche into the text of a play (never performed) that became the basis for Poulenc�s libretto.

Blanche�s very human struggle provides theatrical counterpoint to the unflinching heroism of the rest of the Carmelite community. She flees in fear of execution only to return to her companions in the final scene and death. She overcomes her fear through her love of God and her community.

Poulenc was a serious Catholic, and he does not reduce the religious commitment and self-sacrifice of the doomed Carmelites to some thin gruel of humanist individualism. This is great religious as well as operatic art if not precise history. Bush notes that the nuns did not take a �vow of martyrdom� as Poulenc would have it. It was �an act of consecration� whereby each member of the community �would join with the others in offering herself daily to God, soul and body, in holocaust to restore peace to France and to her church.� This, in fact, is what the prioress, Mother Lidoine, actually proposed in the fall of 1792.

Unknown to Poulenc, Mother Lidoine held a small terracotta statuette of the Madonna and Child in her hand, which each nun kissed, after renewing their vows, before climbing the scaffold. But these and other missing historical details do not take anything away from Poulenc�s achievement. His is a very French creation without the soaring arias of Italian opera. The French do like to talk, but they talk about great things, which the nuns do, to music, throughout this compelling production. These are, after all, the Dialogues of Carmelite martyrs with themselves and their God.

- G. Tracy Mehan III in The American Spectator March 2015