Dialogues of the Carmelites (sung in English)

One of the most devastatingly powerful operas in the repertoire, a compelling portrait of faith, fate and human endurance, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites (1957) is all the more astonishing because it is the composer’s only full-length opera.

It’s the achievement of a supremely gifted song composer who, after a 40-year apprenticeship, finally used his skills to paint a larger dramatic canvas.

Based on a true story, the tragedy of Poulenc’s Carmélites is both a widescreen historical and political tragedy, and an intimate psychological exploration of faith. There’s both grandeur and austerity, impact and intimacy here in music that has all the melodic beauty of Poulenc’s songs, now intensified into sung drama.

The opera takes place between 1789 and 1794 in Paris and in the town of Compiègne in northeastern France, the site of the Carmelite nuns’ convent. Its historical basis is the martyrdom of a group of 16 Carmelite nuns and lay sisters from Compiègne, who chose to offer themselves as victims for the restoration of peace to France during the Revolution. The opera focuses on a young member of an order of Carmelite nuns, the aristocratic Blanche
de la Force, who must overcome a pathological timidity in order to answer her life’s calling.

Robyn Pullen, a recent graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music will sing the role of Blanche.The remarkable cast also features soprano Camilla Foster Mitchell as Blanche’s fellow novice Constance, soprano Jacqueline Varsey as the unshakeable Madame Lidoine, mezzo-soprano Isobel Hughes as Mère Marie, and mezzo-soprano Salome Siu as Madame de Croissy.

Sam Laughton conducts Emma Large’s striking staging. Supported by the Aylesbury Opera Orchestra and Chorus.