Five stars for Dialogues des Carmélites, Metropolitan Opera — outstanding ensemble in revolutionary drama

The Metropolitan Opera has the luxury of drawing some of the very best talent for each production, and not just for leads. While ensemble piece Dialogues des Carmélites, Poulenc’s gorgeous three-act drama about nuns during the French Revolution (which opened on Sunday), starred Ailyn Pérez as Blanche and Alice Coote as Madame de Croissy, they weren’t the only, nor the greatest, virtue.

John Dexter’s production dates from 1977, when it was the Met premiere of this work, and is something close to timeless. The main feature is a giant crucifix laid out as the floor of the stage, where it binds and centres the action. It also enforces a radical simplicity that suits the subject, an order that has, and wants, little more than its faith, something the revolutionary state sees as a tyrannical threat to be destroyed. The opening tableau of the nuns lying prostrate on this cross can read as both avant-garde theatre and a scene from medieval monastic life, two things not dissimilar.

Against this plain and bold vision is Poulenc’s score, which is full of colour and sympathy for the characters: Blanche, the novice who fears everything, especially death; the prioress Madame de Croissy, who is in her last years; Mother Marie (mezzo Jamie Barton), the sub-prioress; the new prioress Madame Lidoine (soprano Christine Goerke); and another novice, Sister Constance.

Soprano Sabine Devieilhe sang Constance in her Met debut and was stellar. Constance is young, and Devieilhe has an ideal instrument in her high, clear voice, singing with ease and assurance, natural and full of vitality. She was an excellent pairing for Pérez’s darker colour, extroverted where Blanche is always turning inward and wrestling with fear and doubt. Coote brought a compelling throaty quality to her vocal characterisation, and Barton was forceful as the officious Marie. Against the two of these, Goerke was also excellent, with great warmth along with her usual easy power.

These vocal contrasts were key, as the music is mostly recitative, the “dialogues” of the opera’s title, with no arias and only a few solo passages. Dialogues is unusual for being a deeply Catholic opera — more than just the church as a component, the drama is about accepting the mystery of faith and all that means, including martyrdom. The dialogues are the drama, and the integration between singers and orchestra is essential.

With Bertrand de Billy in the pit, the orchestral playing was fine through the first half of the performance, but not at the level of expressive suppleness of Pérez, whose every phrase had multiple meaning. In an important moment, Blanche tells her brother (tenor Piotr Buszewski in a workmanlike house debut) she is “a daughter of Carmel”, and in the same way that the phrase is her commitment to overcoming her own fear, so it seemed to bring the orchestra to greater levels of expression and refinement. From there, the music-making was exceptional, and the final scene of the nuns singing the “Salve Regina” on the way, one by one, to the guillotine, was powerfully moving.

★★★★★