Nora Spring as Blanche de la Force and Daniel Cambell as Marquis de la Force. Photo courtesy of Catholic University of America.
“On July 17, 1794, sixteen Carmelites of Compiègne were executed by the guillotine.” This information, projected onto the screen at Hartke Theatre of Washington’s Catholic University of America, is the premise for “Dialogues of the Carmelites,” an opera by the twentieth-century composer and librettist Francis Poulenc.
People who were fortunate enough to experience…this outstanding production will long remember this dialogue of beauty, martyrdom, and the challenges of faith, both with others and within one’s own self.
This fact-based story, original inspired by the historical novel, The Song at the Scaffold, by the German author Gertrud von Le Fort, follows the experiences of Blanche de la Force, a young novice who joins the Carmelite Order during the turmoil of the French Revolution. In the first act of the play, she and other nuns have their faith and way of life challenged by the death of their elderly prioress, Madame de Croissy, who dies in great pain and seems to question God in a blasphemous manner. This challenge to faith and devotion prefigures even greater challenges in Act II, in which Blanche and the other nuns are arrested by the fiercely anti-clerical French revolutionary government and tried for the twin crimes of oppressing the French people and attempting to restore “the power of tyrants.” The Carmelite sisters take a vow to endure martyrdom for their faith, but Blanche waivers, and the audience is left in suspense until the end as to whether she, too, is willing to endure laying down her life in sacrifice for her faith.
The parts were sung by two casts of singers: in Thursday and Saturday performances (this reviewer attended the Saturday performance), Ava Seastrom realized the part of Blanche in a voice mingled with sweetness and power, depending on where her faith’s journey found her at a given moment in the opera’s plot. (Nora Spring assumed the role on Friday and Sunday.) Nakia Verner compellingly acted and sang as Prioress Madame de Cruissy. (The part was enacted and sung by Hanye Chu in the Friday and Sunday performances.) All four performances featured Miguel Villalobos as the Father Confessor of the Convent. His acting and singing splendidly reflected his turmoil as a priest going into hiding during the Reign of Terror, rather than dying as a martyr.
The orchestra, directed by Simeone Tartaglione during the Saturday performance, handled the challenges and vicissitudes of the opera’s unusual score brilliantly. The music is fascinating, fluctuating between modern and Romantic styles, the latter reminiscent of some of Bernard Herrmann’s film scores. Towards the dramatic close of the opera, the music shifts once again towards the nineteenth century operatic, at times incorporating Latin lyrics to evoke a requiem mass. Most other parts of the originally French-language opera are sung in English, with very helpful surtitles provided for this production.
The scenic design by Samina Vieth was appropriately spare, with the home of Blanche’s noble family in an off-kilter shape, representing the turmoil of Revolutionary France. The costumes of Claudie Gastine, borrowed from the Washington National Opera and once used in an Opera National de Paris production, were highly effective, representing clerical, aristocratic, and revolutionary figures, but not so ornate or stylized as to be distracting.
Fr. Simon Nolan, O.Carm., PhD., of Catholic University’s Center for Carmelite Studies, helped shed further light on this exquisite production: “Poulenc’s opera does not leave the Cross at the level of ideas. It gives the Cross a visual and aesthetic presence. Early in Act II, the crucifix in the chapter room is described (in the stage directions) as large and very beautiful. That detail matters. It suggests that what is being contemplated is not only suffering, but a form of love that carries its own beauty.” Death and beauty, he noted in our interview, “is this paradox that Poulenc’s opera quietly invites us to contemplate. Later, in the convent garden, Sister Blanche and Sister Constance make a cross out of flowers for the tomb of the old Prioress. Again, death, beauty, and the Cross are quietly linked.” He also noted that his Carmelite Order has a tradition of dialogue and conversation, and that this might help the viewer appreciate that this opera, at times episodic, is driven more by dialogue than by physical action.
People who were fortunate enough to experience one of the four performances of this outstanding production will long remember this dialogue of beauty, martyrdom, and the challenges of faith, both with others and within one’s own self. This reviewer hopes that further stagings of this outstanding, but undeservedly lesser-known production will occur in the future.
Running Time: Two hours and 35 minutes, including a fifteen-minute intermission.
“Dialogues of the Carmelites” ran April 23-26, 2026 at HartkeTheatre, Catholic University of America, 620 Michigan Ave., N.E. Washington, DC 20064 For more information and to purchase tickets for upcoming events, please go online.
