CCM's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" Gripping

During the French Revolution, a shy young aristocrat enters a Carmelite convent near Paris.  Blanche de la Force is pathologically afraid – of the night, of the day, of fear itself.

Of the convent, she says, “Where I am, nothing can harm me.”

In a short time she will voluntarily go to the guillotine with her sisters.

Based on a true story, Francis Poulenc’s 1957 “Dialogues of the Carmelites” received a gripping performance by the opera department of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Sunday afternoon in Corbett Auditorium.

Directed by Steven Goldstein, holder of CCM’s Weinberger Chair of Acting for the Lyric Theater, it was an inspired and elegant production.  From the opening scene, where the Marquis de la Force (Blanche’s complacent father) rests calmly in an easy chair as his son, the Chevalier de la Force, expresses concern about his sister Blanche (whose carriage has just been surrounded by an angry mob), to the final scene, where Blanche walks calmly out of the crowd to join her sisters in martyrdom, it was a triumph of classic focus.  The opera was sung in English with English surtitles.  (It was the preference of the deeply religious Poulenc that it be sung in the language of the audience.)

Designed by CCM’s Thomas Umfrid, the set consisted of a steeply raked platform with a marble grain, backed by a black wall where lines, squares and rectangles of light grew and then shrank away.  The Prioress’ death bed, lighted candles, an altar, tables and benches, were carried on and off, and a huge crucifix flown in for the chapel scenes.  Except for the Marquis’ 18^th-century finery, everyone was garbed in black, white and shades of gray (with an occasional blood-red armband among the townspeople).  It created powerful imagery of good versus evil.

Principal roles were sung by an alternating student cast, headed Sunday by soprano Abigail Paschke (Blanche), tenor Daniel Ross (the Chevalier), baritone Hunter Enoch (the Marquis), sopranos Melissa Harvey and Jenna Schroer (Sister Constance and the new Prioress, respectively) and mezzo-sopranos Leah De Gruyl and Jill Phillips (Mother Marie and the Prioress).  All brought credibility and conviction to their roles.  Assistant conductor Jung-Hyun Cho led the CCM Philharmonia with great skill.

Fear and love are the twin themes of the opera, and not just Blanche’s fears.  The struggle and despair of the Prioress, who dies from illness in act one, was one of the most unforgettable moments in the opera, Phillips’ lying on the floor with her arm outstretched toward Blanche.

Love is the redemptive theme, the nuns’ love for each other and the Chevalier’s love for his sister.  Ross pleaded affectingly with his “little rabbit” (pet name for Blanche), whom he urges to escape France with him in act two.  Harvey, whose high, sweet voice mirrored the novice Constance perfectly, returned Blanche’s timorous questioning with guileless love.  The full-voiced De Gruyl (Mother Marie) served as the moral magnet, whose example helped prevail on Blanche to sacrifice herself with the other sisters.

The opera is written in a declamatory style with liturgical music by the Carmelites inserted at climactic points:  as the Prioress lay in state in the chapel (Qui Lazarum resuscitatsi), as the new Prioress was being introduced (Ave Maria), as the Chaplain celebrated a final Mass at the convent (Ave verum corpus) and in the concluding scene, as they went to their deaths (Salve regina).

The fear had vanished from Blanche’s eyes as she (Paschke) arose from the crowd of horrified spectators to follow Sister Constance to the scaffold with a final, confident Deo Patri sit gloria on her lips.  It was a transfixing scene, with each sister turning sharply away from the audience and lying arms outstretched on the floor each time the guillotine fell (a clash of metal-on-metal by the percussion).

(first published in the Cincinnati Enquirer May 17, 2011)