Live from the Met in HD: Dialogues des Carmelites (11 May 2019)

[Pulcinella]

https://www.metopera.org/globalassets/dialoguesdesc_global.pdf?performanceNumber=15188

UK cinemas at 17:00 on 11 May 2019.

Spoiler alert: It's got nuns and singing, but it isn't The Sound of Music.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I went to this cinema relay. It was stupendous - very well sung with Leonard and Mattila outstanding . On returning home I then had the bizarre experience of hearing again Act 2 all over again on the Met relay. Ira was so upset at the end he could barely speak....

[Pulcinella]

Anyone know the piece well?
I'm sure I heard an almost direct 'quote' from Stravinsky's Symphonies of wind just after the death of the old mother superior (agree superbly sung and acted by Mattila).

[Bryn]

Anyone know the piece well?
I'm sure I heard an almost direct 'quote' from Stravinsky's Symphonies of wind just after the death of the old mother superior (agree superbly sung and acted by Mattila).

Hmm. I wonder where Stravinsky stole it from?

[Pulcinella]

Hmm. I wonder where Stravinsky stole it from?

You made me panic and check dates there for a moment, Bryn, as I thought you were implying that Poulenc got there first.
:relief emoticon:

Was Poulenc also paying homage to Debussy, or did he just like the 'chant', I wonder.

[Bryn]

You made me panic and check dates there for a moment, Bryn, as I thought you were implying that Poulenc got there first.
:relief emoticon:

Was Poulenc also paying homage to Debussy, or did he just like the 'chant', I wonder.

I was simply alluding to Stravinsky's “A good composer does not imitate; he steals.”, itself stolen from earlier similar quotes re. poets, et al.

[Pulcinella]

I was simply alluding to Stravinsky's “A good composer does not imitate; he steals.”, itself stollen from earlier similar quotes re. poets, et al.

Poulenc and Stravinsky both qualify as musical magpies, I suspect.

[Dave2002]

I was simply alluding to Stravinsky's “A good composer does not imitate; he steals.”, itself stollen from earlier similar quotes re. poets, et al.

Let's leaven stollen out of this - it's not Christmas yet.

There are lots of self quotes or similarities in the Carmelites - flute sonata, organ concerto etc. I don't know which pieces came first - the opera or the other pieces.

I really don't know what to make of the opera. Why did Poulenc write it? Is it simply a historical record, or is there more to it than that? It looks as though Poulenc himself wrote the libretto, which seems to have some very curious sentiments - I'm not sure if they are pro or anti religion or catholicism - or if Poulenc was sceptical.

It seemed almost more of a play with music - which I found somewhat dreary (sorry - that's how it felt) but reminded me of Debussy (P&M which I don't know well) - but the logic of the text did make sense. Why Blanche turned up at the end - perhaps she always did have so much fear that she thought that as a means of putting an end to it all - which could have happened anyway to unfortunate people in those times - that it would at least be an easy and quick solution - or did she really have strong religious beliefs?

Music apart, a very powerful drama.

[Roslynmuse]

The libretto is based on a play by Georges Bernanos.

I suspect Poulenc's reasons for setting it were complex - he returned to the Catholic faith from which he had lapsed after a friend - the composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud - was killed in a car crash. That was around 1937; the operas was written about 20 years later. Ferroud's death was particularly horrific in that he was decapitated, and I have often wondered whether the almost ritual beheadings at the end of the opera were the way that Poulenc confronted that particular demon. The fundamental question of the opera is "why do some people die such terrible deaths when they have lived good lives?" And, "do some people die the deaths meant for others?" And the 'dialogue' form is not always conducive to a sense of dramatic momentum.

Powerful, yes; personally - and despite being a great admirer of much of Poulenc's music - I have never been able to feel anything other than claustrophobia when I have heard it. It took me a long time to get beyond the Mother Superior's death scene. (Literally - I think I could only face the rest of it about seven years later...)

Much more to my taste is the totally crazy Mamelles de Tirésias - the original Cluytens recording is unmissable.

[Pulcinella]

Anyone know the piece well?
I'm sure I heard an almost direct 'quote' from Stravinsky's Symphonies of wind just after the death of the old mother superior (agree superbly sung and acted by Mattila).

The programme booklet for the previous production I saw (WNO, in English, in Oxford, 1999; I have NO memory of it at all ) tells me that score is dedicated (amongst others) to the memory of Claude Debussy, so it would be a nice touch for him to have quoted the Stravinsky piece.

[Dave2002]

The libretto is based on a play by Georges Bernanos.

I think the actual words are by Poulenc, though. The Met production sang it in French, with English subtitles, which made a lot of sense. The only other time I saw this was at the ENO, with a translation directly into English.

Regarding Stravinsky - I've been "hearing" echoes of Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms after seeing the Met cinema production of the Carmelites. I think there are links to Stravinsky in Poulenc's opera, but very subdued.

[Richard Tarleton]

The programme booklet for the previous production I saw (WNO, in English, in Oxford, 1999; I have NO memory of it at all ) tells me that score is dedicated (amongst others) to the memory of Claude Debussy, so it would be a nice touch for him to have quoted the Stravinsky piece.

I saw that, in Cardiff - for some reason Act 1 scene 1 had one of the Stubbs paintings of a lion attacking a white horse propped up against the wall as if waiting to be hung.....

I'm glad I saw it, but find it so horrific I wouldn't want to see/hear it again .

One of those New Scientist Christmas books a few years back had an article entitled something like "does being guillotined hurt?" - i.e. is it over in an instant. Apparently experiments involving criminals condemned to death indicated that their heads appeared aware of things for some time afterwards