https://www.metopera.org/season/on-demand/opera/?upc=810004201149&fbclid=IwAR1ah0ktN-6JimzSMtbpWek9N5D-wKJhxMxgP6ar-iQlZaS93pwBiW0JQEs
Dialogues des Carmélites
Francois Poulenc
Metropolitan Opera Nightly Stream
#CoronaCouchOpera, Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
31st May, 2020
4.5 stars
Dialogues des Carmélites, Francois Poulenc’s sombre and chilling account based on a convent of nuns sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution - following the decree of 17th August 1792 expelling religious orders from their houses - is one of the 20th century’s great operatic masterpieces. Brought to harrowing life in John Dexter’s intensely focused and powerfully minimal 1977 production, it’s the latest free nightly opera stream from New York’s Metropolitan Opera. I didn’t take a break after all.
Premiered in 1957, ever-present in Poulenc’s perfectly transparent musical realm are ominous interspersions that signal the terror that lies ahead. The work is a palpable study of profound faith and approaching death. Underlying it, is the arduous battle against fear.
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin gives the score a patina that glistens and soars, along with thrusting shreds of music seamlessly and assertively driven in. Revival director David Kneuss responds intelligently to the music throughout with emotionally charged direction in marvellously segued scenes across its three acts. Design consists of little more than a cruciform-shaped low platform of wide timber flooring spread over a blackened stage with a few simple props and drops. As simple as Dexter’s production is, the sorts of imagery it etches become the kind of moments memory may never erase.
Like Puccini’s one-act opera Suor Angelica, Dialogues des Carmélites is a showcase for the female voice. That being so, the story gets underway with two aristocratic gentlemen, father and son, who are in conversation over daughter and sister, Blanche de la Force’s withdrawn behaviour. Blanche’s introduction more or less makes her the central figure of the opera but she is surrounded by strongly illustrated characters who equally illuminate the work’s themes.
As Blanche, American soprano Isabel Leonard is a fine actress with an elegant, velvety and ample soprano. From the start, Leonard renders Blanche’s uneasiness and deep introspective nature with a quivering but flowing legato up to entering the Carmelite order. Once inside, Leonard increasingly builds Blanche from naive young woman into a heroine-like figure, attempting to beat her fears as she does so in rapturous voice.
As the old prioress, Madame de Croissy, Finnish soprano Karita Mattila is a tour de force. Unpredictable and dogmatic, Mattila gives her frightening form, yet elicits sympathy when inner pain can no longer be concealed. With a vocal line that twists and turns through highly explosive territory, in Mattila’s performance you feel the prioress’ agony brought on by her impending natural death, as if possessed, in a movingly enunciated scene.
As an imperious Sister Marie, Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargil converts mountainous rich sound to creaminess and compassion in another superb performance, her Marie speaking her mind and at the ready with a hand on authority, becoming more emotionally soft once a vote on martyrdom is made.
As the novice Sister Constance, who has the premonition that she and Blanche will die young together, Erin Morley brings a sunny personality and her pure, mellifluous soprano. Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka is a cordial but firm presence as the new prioress Madame Lidoine and warm, lyrical tenor David Portillo is a convincing presence as Blanche’s concerned brother, Chevalier de la Force.
The culmination of events comes with the chorus of nuns, stripped of habits and in civilian attire, singing the “Salve Regina” as, one by one, the repeated metallic slice of the guillotine cuts through their extraordinarily beautiful hymn to the Virgin Mary. I sobbed from start to finish. If, in saying, “Perhaps fear is really an illness,” as Blanche had wondered, her faith and courage had cured her in her final moments.
Dialogues des Carmélites
Francois Poulenc
Metropolitan Opera Nightly Stream
#CoronaCouchOpera, Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
31st May, 2020
4.5 stars
Dialogues des Carmélites, Francois Poulenc’s sombre and chilling account based on a convent of nuns sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution - following the decree of 17th August 1792 expelling religious orders from their houses - is one of the 20th century’s great operatic masterpieces. Brought to harrowing life in John Dexter’s intensely focused and powerfully minimal 1977 production, it’s the latest free nightly opera stream from New York’s Metropolitan Opera. I didn’t take a break after all.
Premiered in 1957, ever-present in Poulenc’s perfectly transparent musical realm are ominous interspersions that signal the terror that lies ahead. The work is a palpable study of profound faith and approaching death. Underlying it, is the arduous battle against fear.
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin gives the score a patina that glistens and soars, along with thrusting shreds of music seamlessly and assertively driven in. Revival director David Kneuss responds intelligently to the music throughout with emotionally charged direction in marvellously segued scenes across its three acts. Design consists of little more than a cruciform-shaped low platform of wide timber flooring spread over a blackened stage with a few simple props and drops. As simple as Dexter’s production is, the sorts of imagery it etches become the kind of moments memory may never erase.
Like Puccini’s one-act opera Suor Angelica, Dialogues des Carmélites is a showcase for the female voice. That being so, the story gets underway with two aristocratic gentlemen, father and son, who are in conversation over daughter and sister, Blanche de la Force’s withdrawn behaviour. Blanche’s introduction more or less makes her the central figure of the opera but she is surrounded by strongly illustrated characters who equally illuminate the work’s themes.
As Blanche, American soprano Isabel Leonard is a fine actress with an elegant, velvety and ample soprano. From the start, Leonard renders Blanche’s uneasiness and deep introspective nature with a quivering but flowing legato up to entering the Carmelite order. Once inside, Leonard increasingly builds Blanche from naive young woman into a heroine-like figure, attempting to beat her fears as she does so in rapturous voice.
As the old prioress, Madame de Croissy, Finnish soprano Karita Mattila is a tour de force. Unpredictable and dogmatic, Mattila gives her frightening form, yet elicits sympathy when inner pain can no longer be concealed. With a vocal line that twists and turns through highly explosive territory, in Mattila’s performance you feel the prioress’ agony brought on by her impending natural death, as if possessed, in a movingly enunciated scene.
As an imperious Sister Marie, Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargil converts mountainous rich sound to creaminess and compassion in another superb performance, her Marie speaking her mind and at the ready with a hand on authority, becoming more emotionally soft once a vote on martyrdom is made.
As the novice Sister Constance, who has the premonition that she and Blanche will die young together, Erin Morley brings a sunny personality and her pure, mellifluous soprano. Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka is a cordial but firm presence as the new prioress Madame Lidoine and warm, lyrical tenor David Portillo is a convincing presence as Blanche’s concerned brother, Chevalier de la Force.
The culmination of events comes with the chorus of nuns, stripped of habits and in civilian attire, singing the “Salve Regina” as, one by one, the repeated metallic slice of the guillotine cuts through their extraordinarily beautiful hymn to the Virgin Mary. I sobbed from start to finish. If, in saying, “Perhaps fear is really an illness,” as Blanche had wondered, her faith and courage had cured her in her final moments.
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