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Article: And Then There Were None; The Brutal True Story Behind Poulenc's `Dialogues'
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- July 17, 1994
- Author:
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Alot of operas end with people dying, and more often than not
the victim is a woman. But never has there been such "femicidal"
madness on an operatic stage as the conclusionof Francis
Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites," which the Summer Opera
Theatre will present in five performances beginning Friday night in
the Hartke Theatre. No fewer than 16 sopranos and mezzos are
slaughtered - systematically, one by one, in less than 10 minutes.
There is only one possible excuse for such wanton artistic
violence. It is based on history, which is even more bloody than
opera.
In "Dialogues of the Carmelites," the year is 1794, the high
tide of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. ...