Dialogues des Carmélites

The French Revolution is in full swing. The young noblewoman Blanche suffers from constant fears, escalated to the unbearable by the turmoil in the streets. She decides to flee from the world as a nun in the convent of the Carmelite Sisters of Compiègne. But even beyond the monastery walls, the revolution does not stop. When the nuns refuse to break their vows and leave the order as demanded by the revolutionary guard, they are sentenced to death under the guillotine. Blanche flees: from death, from fear – but ultimately, from life itself. At the last moment, she returns to share the martyr’s death with her sisters in faith. Singing, they ascend the scaffold.

With this conclusion, Francis Poulenc created one of the most moving scenes in the entire music theater literature. In his only full-length opera, the composer deals with the true story of the "Martyrs of Compiègne." The opera explores, like hardly any other, the upheavals of a profoundly insecure and wounded soul in partly indulgent melodies. It premiered in 1957 at La Scala in Milan and is now being performed for the first time at the Schleswig-Holstein State Theatre.