Opera "The Carmelite Dialogues": content, video, interesting facts, history

F. Poulenc Opera "The Carmelite Dialogues"

One of the best examples of twentieth-century opera art was critics of a work by a French composer. Francis Poulenc "Carmelite Dialogues". This is a tragic mystery poem about unconquered souls, which was based on the true story of the suffering death of sixteen inhabitants of the monastery in the town of Compiegne. Young and beautiful women who did not know love and happiness, detached from the world, executed by soldiers of the French Revolution, showed such strength of mind that is worthy of admiration and is equal to feat.

The dramatic plot touched the audience so much that the premiere and subsequent performances of the play were a great success, and the amazing beauty of Pulek's music made him one of the most popular works.

Summary of the opera Poulenc "Carmelite Dialogues"and many interesting facts about this work read on our page.

Summary of "Carmelite Dialogues"

The opera takes place in France at the end of the 18th century during the bourgeois revolution. The daughter of Marquis de la Fors Blanche suffers from bouts of nervousness and panic fear, which she began to appear from the memories of the tragic death of her mother, who died during the vague unrest. Blanche makes his father aware of his desire to go to a monastery in order to find peace. Marquis discourages her, but the daughter is unshakable in his intention.

Blanche goes to Compiègne to the Carmelite dwelling, where, having become a novice, she joins monastic life. She receives special patronage of the abbess, meets with the inhabitants of the community, among whom she has close friendship with her cheerful sister Constance. The abbess of the monastery, Madame de Croissy (mother Henrietta of Jesus) is ill, and while dying, she predicts a monastery of desecration and devastation, but no one believes her, believing that she is dying dying. Mother Henrietta departs to another world. The newly elected abbess, Mrs. Lidouan (mother Mary from St. Augustine), insists that the new novice be tonsured as a nun. The ceremony took place, and the girl receives the name of sister Blanche from the Mortal Meal of Christ. Representatives of the new revolutionary government come to the monastery, who declare that all the property of the Community: the land and dowry of the nun sisters should come into the possession of the Nation. When the uninvited “guests” left the monastery, the new prioress called, despite the difficult times, to continue sacredly serving God. After a while, Chevalier de la Fors arrives at the monastery, he asks for a meeting with his sister, who later implores him to leave the monastery and leave France with him, because it has become very dangerous to remain in the country due to the growing unrest. Blanche refuses to follow her brother.

In the monastery, a disgraced chaplain is hiding from the new authorities: he was forbidden to perform the duties of a priest under pain of death. He reads a sermon to the nuns and hides, as armed people rush into the monastery at this time, who begin to commit atrocities and order the nuns to leave the monastery. Mother Mary calls upon the Carmelite sisters in the name of God to take the path of self-sacrifice. During the confusion, Blanche secretly leaves the monastery in order to return to the parental home. After some time, the monastery learns that the Marquis de la Force is executed, and Mother Mary, worrying about the girl, goes to get her to return to the monastery and save her life. Meanwhile, nun-sisters are arrested, sent to prison and sentenced to death for allegedly counter-revolutionary activities. Blanche finds out about this and goes to the place of execution. When the Carmelite sisters climb the scaffold, she immediately decides to follow them.

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Interesting Facts

• Libretto for the opera "Dialogues of the Carmelites" was written by the composer himself. Francis Poulenc, based on the play of the same name by Georges Bernanos.
• The main character in the opera, Blanche de la Force, was performed at various times by such famous opera divas as the Frenchwoman Denise Duval, the Englishwoman Kiri Te Kanawa, an American Carol Vaness.
• More than a hundred years after the tragic events that took place during the Great French Revolution and were depicted in the opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites, sixteen executed nuns were canonized. The Pope Pius X carried out the canonization of the saints in 1906.
• The play by French playwright Georges Bernanos "The Dialogues of the Carmelites" edited by friend writer Albert Beguin was first shown at the Paris Theater Eberto in 1952 and is still a great success, entering the repertoire of many drama theaters around the world.
• In the cinema, the story "Carmelite" was addressed two times: in 1960 (dir. F. Agustin) and in 1984 (dir. P. Cardinal), and in the second film, dialogues written by J. Bernanos were used, which were rejected during the first film adaptation.

• The libretto of the musical play "Dialogues of the Carmelites" has a rather interesting story. Initially, the plot for the novel "The Last on the Scaffold" was borrowed by the writer Baroness Gertrude von Le Fort from real notes of a Carmelite nun from the time of the French Revolution. The nun took notes, thinking of gaining the fame of a martyr, but she accidentally escaped the fate of the executed Carmelite sisters. In 1947, the Dominican priest father Brueckberge had the idea to make a film about nuns - martyrs. To this end, he wrote the script for the plot of the book of the German writer, but asked Brückberge for the dialogues for the film to compose a French Catholic writer J. Bernanos. However, the filmmaker Philip Agostini didn’t like what the playwright wrote. It was only a year after the death of Bernanos that Albert Beguin, a researcher of his work, discovered, edited and published a work entitled The Dialogues of the Carmelites.
• The name of the writer Georges Bernanos gained popularity with the publication of the Carmelite Dialogs. His previous novels did not arouse such interest among readers.

The history of the creation of the Carmelite Dialogues

In the early fifties, a representative of the administration of the famous Milan Opera Theater “La Scala” addressed Poulenc and asked to write a ballet on a plot from the life of the Italian saint Margherita Cortona. Francis promised to think. In March 1953, during a concert tour in Italy, he touched on this topic in conversation with M. Valkaranji - director of the Italian music publishing house "Ricordi" and quite by chance received an answer to a question that had tormented him for many months. In the conversation, the publisher advised the composer to write on the church story not a ballet, but an opera, while recommending a certain play: "The Carmelite Dialogues" by French writer Georges Bernanos. At first, this proposal was quite surprised by Poulenc: how would they perceive an opera in which there would be no love intrigue? But, besides this, he was intrigued, because he knew not only the work well, but was personally acquainted with its author.

The composer re-read the play, thought about how many difficulties he would have to face when composing an opera on this text, but nevertheless he was so carried away by the work that he telegraphed to Milan about his final decision. It took the composer nearly three years to compose the work: he began it in August 1953, and graduated in June 1956.

Productions

It goes without saying that the premiere performance of the opera "Dialogues of the Carmelites" was held in Milan. The performance was held on January 26, 1957. It is well known that the public of the eminent theater "La Scala", preferring the well-established repertoire performed by crowned idols, is usually hostile to the productions of new works and with great pleasure boos them. However, the curtain of the first show of the play "Dialogues of the Carmelites" was closed under the noisy applause of the audience, which surprised critics very much.

Then, on June 21, 1957, the original French version of the opera was staged in Paris. The Parisian version of the Carmelite Dialogues was closest to the Poulenc's zymysl, because, unlike the Italian bel canto style, the French vocalists used the Parlando (musical recitative) style that met the composer’s requirements. Almost simultaneously with the French public, German listeners heard the opera in Germany, and in the fall of the same year, the work was first sounded in English. This happened on September 20 in the USA in San Francisco.

"Carmelite" quickly entered the repertoire of many theaters in the world, they were put on the stages of London, Vienna, Chicago, Lisbon, Geneva, Trieste, Barcelona, ​​Naples, but Muscovites heard this opera only in 2004 in "Helikon - Opera" staged by Yu Bertman.

"Carmelite Dialogues"- this is an amazing poem - a mystery about unbroken souls, in which Francis Poulenc vividly displayed all the drama and power of a great human tragedy. The composer through the palette of musical language was able to create such a dialogue with the soul of the listener and show the whole horror of the plot that the play is still very popular today, entering the repertoire of the largest opera houses around the world.