Dialogues of the Carmelites, San Francisco Conservatory Opera Theater, April 3 2011

Another “new” opera for me, one that I hadn’t seen before, one that I counted among the important operas that I had not seen. (What’s still on that list? Der Freischutz, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Rienzi, Maria Stuarda, From the House of the Dead, Sicilian Vespers, Orfeo, ... But I’m in good company—my friend who teaches at SFCM had never seen Carmelites either. And San Francisco Opera has not performed it since 1982.) I’ve read about the impact of the final scene, and this one delivered.

The performance was given at the Cowell Theater at Ft. Mason Center, and it was fairly well attended: roughly 80% of the seats were occupied. The foundation of the set was three large “stone” pillars that could easily be used to represent the wall of a mansion or a church or a public square, depending upon what was inserted between the pillars: a fireplace or an altar or a steel gate. The opera is in three acts of four scenes each, and the scene changes were effected by having the characters on stage move the equipment around.

The most notable moments of acting and stage direction came at the ends of acts 1 and 4. The end of act 1 is the agonizing death of the mother superior, conforming to its description as “the most realistic death in all of opera.” Kristen Choi as the mother superior writhed convincingly. At the end of act 4, all of the nuns in the convent are guillotined. Dressed in simple white muslin, they gathered to the left and sang a hymn of praise, Salve regina. One at a time, they walked across the back of the stage, up a ramp, off the stage, and then we heard the sickening sound of the guillotine—and then there is one fewer voice singing. Ultimately the chorus is reduced to a quartet, then a trio, then a duet, then Blanche goes to her death singing Deo patri sit gloria. Schlliicckk goes the guillotine, and no one is singing. Truly a theatrical masterstroke.

There are 20 named parts, 31 if you count the individual nuns, so I will only mention
Blanche de la Force: Julia Metzler
Old Prioress: Kristen Choi
Father Confessor: Dominic Domingo
Conductor: Michael Morgan
Director: Richard Harrell

The performance by the SFCM students, both singers and orchestra, was fairly respectable. I was struck by the confident baritone of one young man, whether he was one of the two “officers” or one of the two “soldiers” I couldn’t tell, but I would like to hear him in more than a tiny role. The Father Confessor has a long way to go before being compared to his famous grandfather. Overall, a gamma or bit better.