The stark glory of Robert Carsen’s Dialogues des Carmélites with Canadian Opera Company

Francis Poulenc’s 1957 opera Dialogues des Carmélites has the virtues of necessity. Director Robert Carsten’s COC production puts these virtues before us in simple black and white. The virtues begin with the story: Blanche, an aristocrat afraid of the French Revolution who hopes to find refuge in a nunnery, becomes a refugee of religious persecution, and chooses to die a martyr with her sisters. The story is told with a minimum of props and no end of imaginative staging, lighting and costumes. Read the Full Review