Thread by @david_m_wagner

1/ Bc #DIALOGUES OF THE CARMELITES is coming up in about 2 hrs (available all night & thru tmrw pm), a few notes about it. As you know, it's the true story of the martyrdom of the Carmel of Compiegne in 1794, at the peak of the Terror. One nun was not condemned; her notes became

2/ the basis for a novel by Gertrud von le Fort called La dernière à l’échafaud, meaning The Last at the Scaffold, usually mistranslated as The Song at..., which captures fact that they sang hymns on their way to death, but misses the drama of the invented character Blanche de la

3/ Force and her struggle with fear. The 1930s French novelist & playwright Georges Bernanos worked on turning this into a screenplay: he completed much of it, including the end, but there a still some unfinished scenes. I read somewhere that he hadn’t even given it a name

4/ & this was done by executors going through his stuff.
René: Ok whatya got next?
François: Looks like...some dialogues?... about some Carmelites?...
René (writes in his ledger): “Dialogues...of...the...Carmelites.... Ok, whatya got next?
Something like that. It stuck, and it’s

5/ perfect. Bc it’s in their dialogues - Blanche stumbling over her reasons for joining Carmel; the Old Prioress recalling her vocation; the New Prioress’s discourse on martyrdom; etc etc. - that the themes of fear, honor, and death are worked out. Not ready for the stage, but

6/ the composer François Poulenc - himself a struggling believer in the grand French tradition - made it an opera, which has secured his fame and that of the Sisters. Opera-nerd notes: world premiere was at La Scala in Jan 1957, in Italian. Role “creators” included

7/ Virginia Zeani as Blanche & Leyla Gencer (“the Turkish Callas”) as Mme. Lidoine, the New Prioress. The Paris 1ere, 6 mos. later, featured legendary performances such as Régine Crespin as Mme. Lidoine and Rita Gorr as Mother Marie. In after years, both these singers frequently

8/ came out of retirement to sing the role of Mme. de Croissy, the Old Prioress, whose death in Act 1 is so important for the rest of the story. I saw Crespin in this role. (If u like, ask me why monoglot francophone Crespin actually preferred singing Mme. de Croissy in English.)