Towards the end of the second act of Dialogues des Carmélites, assistant Prioress Mother Marie (soprano Melody Moore) learns of the closing of her convent from a Commissioner (tenor Christopher Oglesby); the back wall shows the French Revolutionary motto (equality), to which the words “before God” have been added (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)
Last night San Francisco Opera present the first of five performances of Francis Poulenc’s only full-evening opera, Dialogues des Carmélites (dialogues of the Carmelites). This was the title of a film by Georges Bernanos, which provided the basis for the opera libretto written by Poulenc himself. The film had provided an account of the so-called “Martyrs of Compiègne,” sixteen Carmelite nuns that were executed by guillotine on July 17, 1794, one of the atrocities of what is now known as the Reign of Terror. The resulting libretto consisted almost entirely of prose delivered through recitative singings, the only exceptions being the hymns sung as part of the Carmelite services. For these episodes Poulenc tended to draw upon music taken from church services during the eighteenth century.
The overall narrative amounts to the interplay of three distinctively different settings. The Carmelite Order in Compiègne is clearly one of them, as is the secular world of the libretto’s protagonist, Blanche de la Force (soprano Heidi Stober, performing this role for the first time). Hers is an aristocratic family, whose future is a dire one due to the third setting, that of the French Revolution, which spilled over into the Reign of Terror. In Poulenc’s libretto this third setting is only implicit; but its presence is clearly established by Olivier Py’s staging and the production designs of Pierre-André Weitz, both making SFO debuts along with Daniel Izzo, who directed the revival of Py’s production.
There was a seamless flow to Py’s staging, which may well have been inspired by Bernanos’ film. That flow, in turn, was consistently facilitated by the flow of Poulenc’s music, given an intensely compelling account by Music Director Eun Sun Kim, with the SFO Chorus prepared by Chorus Director John Keene. Those familiar with SFO history know that the company give this opera its United States premiere on September 20, 1957. On that occasion the opera was sung in English, and last night was the first time it was performed by SFO in French.
It is impressive how little action is accounted for in Poulenc’s libretto. One might almost take the text as a Socratic dialogue, which keeps action to a minimum to avoid interfering with thought. That strategy should not come as a surprise to those familiar with French music during the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1918 Erik Satie concluded his composition of “Socrate,” a three-part work originally scored for voice and piano and later orchestrated. The libretto consisted of three excerpts from the dialogues of Plato, which gave voice to the philosopher Socrates. The verbal exchanges (dialogues) among the Carmelites thus emerge as a latter-day reflection over the many reflections on life we encounter in Socrates by way of Plato.
As many would have expected, the guillotining of the nuns serves as the opera’s climax. Poulenc chose to incorporate the falling of the guillotine blade into his instrumentation. In the SFO production those sounds are provided by a physical prop called the “saber box.” The box itself was situated backstage, and the sounds were amplified with a microphone. The “instrument” itself was performed by percussionist Victor Avdienko.
One never sees the guillotine itself. With each “falling of the blade,” one of the Carmelite nuns collapses, after which her “soul” rises to leave the stage through the rear. This low-key account of the most intense episode in the narrative endowed the scene with a sense of poignancy, rather than the “horror of the Terror.” Over the course of the opera’s three acts, one observes how Carmelite life is guided almost entirely by faith in God; and that guidance remains with them, presumably continuing as their souls leave the horrors of earth to rise to Heaven.
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