Dialogues des Carmélites

Les Dialogues des Carmélites opens the 2022-23 season of the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome with the direction of Emma Dante and  with Michele Mariotti as conductor. The opera by Francis Poulenc in three acts and twelve paintings on a libretto taken from the homonymous text by Georges Bernanos, was performed for the first time at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1957 and at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1958.

The story is inspired by a real event, namely the execution, in July 1794, during the Regime of Terror, of sixteen French nuns, known as the "Martyrs of Compiègne", who had refused to renounce their vows. In Poulenc's work, the figure of Blanche de la Force stands out among all, who entered the convent at the beginning of the French Revolution, during the turmoil following the abolition of the monastic orders, at first flees to save herself, but as soon as she discovers that his father has been guillotined, overcoming the fear of death, he decides to join his sisters on the scaffold, accepting his fate. The direction of Emma Dante highlights the psychology of this character and her fears, as well as the other nuns who choose the path of martyrdom in spite of themselves.

The show, in a new staging in co-production with Teatro La Fenice in Venice, stars Jean-François Lapointe in the role of the Marquis de la Force, Corinne Winters in the role of Blanche de la Force, Bogdan Volkov in that of Cavaliere de la Force.

Photo credits: courtesy of the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome official site