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Dialogues Des Carmelites
Dialogues des Carmélites, which means "Dialogues of the Carmelites," is an opera with three acts, twelve scenes, and orchestral interludes between them. It was written by Francis Poulenc, who also gave the music and words. The libretto for Poulenc's second opera was based on a work by Georges Bernanos with the same name.
The opera tells a fictional version of the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, who were Carmelite nuns hanged in Paris in 1794 for refusing to give up their vocation during the last days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
The Story
Poulenc's tragic opera Dialogues des Carmélites takes place between 1789 and 1794, during the French Revolution. It tells the horrifying story of how the whole Carmelite order was killed.
Blanche, the daughter of the Chevalier de la Force, was caught in a street fight on the outskirts of Paris, which gave her a terrible scare. Her fragile personality can't handle any more violence, so she looks for the peace and safety of a convent and becomes a sister at Carmel. Mother Marie tells her not to go to the convent for safety, and the newly appointed Prioress tells her the same thing. The Revolution is coming, and the convent is not safe. The crowd calls for all religious houses to be shut down, and Blanche's brother visits her secretly to say goodbye before he leaves the country. Mother Marie doesn't leave. Instead, she tells the nuns to do their duty and asks them to die. Blanche runs away from the convent, but by the time she gets home, her father has already been put to death. In the meantime, her sisters are locked up and waiting to be killed.
Sister Blanche finally gets back her faith and goes back to her sisters, where she joins them in dying without fear. In the famous last scene of this opera, the Carmelite nuns are put to death one by one while singing the Salve Regina. As each nun is guillotined, precisely what Poulenc's score calls for, their singing stops until they are entirely silent.
History of Performances
The opera's first performance was on January 26, 1957, at La Scala. The Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani played Blanche. The first performance of the original French version was on June 21, 1875, at the Théatre National de l'Opéra de Paris, now called the Opéra National de Paris. The opera is one of a few works made after Puccini that have never been taken out of the international repertoire.