The devastating tragedy about a young woman who joins the Carmelite nuns to escape the terrors of the French Revolution closes the 2022 offering of CCP Met Opera in HD, slated on December 6, 2022, 5:30 pm, at Greenbelt 3, Ayala Malls Cinemas in Makati City.
Composed by French composer Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc, Dialogues des Carmelites follows the aristocratic Blanche de la Force who joined the Order of Carmelite to escape the reign of terror.
First premiered at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1957, the opera is a quasi-historical opera based on the martyrdom of 16 Carmelite nuns and lay sisters from Compiegne who sacrificed themselves for peace during the revolutionary movement that shook France between 1787 and 1799.
Poulenc wrote the Carmelites libretto himself based on an unproduced screenplay by French author Georges Bernanos. In turn, Bernanos based his screenplay on the 1931 novela Die Letzte am Schafott (The Song at the Scaffold), written by German writer Gertrud von Le Fort.
Poulenc’s three-act opera has become a favorite among the Metropolitan Theater’s audiences because of its striking production values and timeless staging, complemented by a remarkable cast.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the music director of The Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer, leads an accomplished ensemble in Poulenc’s devastating modern piece on faith and martyrdom. Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard is the young Blanche de La Force, opposite Met legend Karita Mattila as the First Prioress.
Now on its seventh season, the CCP Met Opera in HD is a special program of the CCP Film, Broadcast and New Media Division, under the Production and Exhibition Department, in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Filipinas Opera Society Foundation, Inc., and Ayala Malls Cinemas. The series showcases operatic productions through the high-definition (HD) digital video technology and Dolby sound, recreating the experience of watching an opera production at the Met “live.”
For tickets and other inquiries, call the CCP Box Office: 8832-3704 / 8832-1125 local 1409. Visit the CCP website (www.culturalcenter.gov.ph) for more information. Follow the official CCP social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok for the latest updates.
