Dialogues des Carmélites

Few operas focus on the confrontation with one's own mortality as much as Francis Poulenc's opera about an order of Carmelite nuns in the turmoil of the French Revolution, which premiered in 1957. The story revolves around the young Blanche, who - plagued by severe anxiety since birth - finds shelter in a convent. But the time of security ends abruptly when the Revolutionary Committee breaks up the convent and forbids the community from practicing its rites. The sisters swear themselves to martyrdom, only Blanche is driven to flee by the fear of death. But at the last moment, she overcomes herself and follows her sisters to the scaffold. In her production of this hybrid of thriller, discourse opera and holy mass, director Ewelina Marciniak, who is known for her feminist readings, focuses on the dynamics of a community of women struggling to communicate and be human in the midst of terror. And under the musical direction of Cornelius Meister, Poulenc's powerful music becomes an event.

Opera in three acts and twelve scenes
Libretto by the composer after the drama of the same name by Georges Bernanos, based on the novella Die Letzte am Schafott by Gertrud von Le Fort

by Francis Poulenc