DR. LUIS DIAS
“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong,” said British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual Bertrand Russell (1872 -1970).
But I still ask myself this question, and I’m not sure of my answer. I hope circumstances never necessitate a real-life answer from me.
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the Metropolitan Opera New York streamed for free one opera every day, a feast for me. Many were old war-horses of the operatic repertory; but there was one that not only had I never seen or heard before, but it has left an impact on me unlike any of the other usual ‘masala’ love-betrayal-jealousy-lust-revenge-comedy potboilers. Ever since then, I can’t get it out of my mind.
It is ‘Dialogues des Carmelites’ (Dialogues of the Carmelites), an opera (in three acts, divided into 12 scenes with linking orchestral interludes), with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963), completed in 1956. It is a fictionalised version of the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce their vocation.
Poulenc’s inspiration came from the 1931 novella ‘The Song at the Scaffold’ (the original Germantitle : ‘Die Letzte am Schafott’, or ‘The Last Ones at the Scaffold’) by the German writer Gertrud von Le Fort.
A curious subject for an opera, you might think. But I was riveted. And I find myself going back to it periodically, in a very different way than I would revisit the standard operas.
A little background about Poulenc. In his own words, his nature had two sides, a deep religious faith from his father’s pious Roman Catholic family and a worldly and artistic side from his mother’s Parisian family, leading the critic Claude Rostand to describe him as “half monk and half ‘voyou’” (the latter word difficult to translate into English, but loosely, ‘rascal’ or ‘hooligan’).
Two events in 1936 brought about a reawakening of Poulenc’s Roman Catholic faith and spirituality, and a new depth to his music. A composer-friend Pierre-Octave Ferroud died in such a violent car crash that he was decapitated. Very soon after, while on holiday, Poulenc visited the sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Rocamadour. In his words: “A few days earlier I’d just heard of the tragic death of my colleague … As I meditated on the fragility of our human frame, I was drawn once more to the life of the spirit. Rocamadour had the effect of restoring me to the faith of my childhood. This sanctuary, undoubtedly the oldest in France … had everything to captivate me … The same evening of this visit to Rocamadour, I began my ‘Litanies à la Vierge noire’ [Litany to the Black Madonna] for female voices and organ. In that work, I tried to get across the atmosphere of “peasant devotion” that had struck me so forcibly in that lofty chapel.”
From then on, you see an outpouring of sacred compositions, especially choral works, notably his Mass in G major (1937); Four Latin motets for “a time of penitence” (1938-39); Exultate Deo and Salve Regina (1941); Four little prayers of St. Francis of Assisi (1948); Stabat Mater (1950-51); Four motets for Christmas time (1951-52), among many others, almost until his death.
Returning to ‘Dialogue des Carmelites’: it is an extraordinary operatic experience for many reasons. There are no love duets, no histrionics or vocal pyrotechnics.
The central character is noblewoman Blanche de la Force (soprano), daughter of a Marquis. She decides to retreat from the world and enter a Carmelite convent to escape the uncertainties and dangers of the rampaging, murderous Reign of Terror. But the Mother Superior informs her that the Carmelite Order is not a refuge; it is the duty of the nuns to guard the Order, not the other way around.
In a sense, Blanche is the embodiment of Poulenc and by extension, of us, the audience. We feel what she feels. The underlying thread is ‘peur’ (fear); the word keeps recurring in the libretto, voiced not just by her: fear of poverty, of sickness, epidemic, death, indeed, fear of fear itself. “Fear indeed may be a disease,” Blanch tells fellow nun Constance.
In fact, I was reminded of this opera by a statement my friend Fr. Victor Ferrao made in a televised panel discussion in the wake of Subhash Velingkar’s pathetic attempt at sowing fear and discord. Fr. Ferrao observed that an “industry of fear” pervades the political sphere and our capitalism-driven society, especially in India but also in a lot of the world.
Another theme, faith, is highlighted in the deathbed scene at the end of Act 1, where Mother Superior (who one would think of as a bedrock of faith), dying in much agony, becomes bitter and accuses God of abandoning her despite long years of service to Him. Contrast this with an earlier scene where Blanche, to convince her father of her resolve to become a nun, tells him that “One can feel God’s immensity even in a drop of water.” The barometer of faith fluctuates wildly; it is not incremental or ‘tenure’-dependent.Also intriguing is Sister Constance’s remark to Blanche that that the prioress’ death seemed ‘unworthy’ of her, that perhaps she had been given the ‘wrong’ death, like being given the wrong coat in a cloakroom. The memory of my own mother’s death is still raw, and I sometimes think she deserved a ‘better’ death, even a better sunset to her life. Was it all pre-destined, as Blanche thinks, or could, should it have played out differently?
After this scene, the Terror increases exponentially, entering even the safety of the convent. The 16 nuns are forced to surrender their attire, their religious habits. They then vote on taking a ‘vow of martyrdom’ Blanche flees home, only to find her father has been guillotined, and she now has to serve her own former servants, a lesson in humility.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to watch the whole opera, do watch its apotheosis, the final scene, the most unusual operatic climax I’ve ever seen. One by one, each nun stands and slowly processes toward the guillotine, as all sing the ‘Salve Regina’ (‘Hail, Holy Queen’). Those of my generation and older will know the prayer’s Latin text well. The first sickening metallic swish and dull thud of the guillotine blade stops the music in its tracks; the nuns (and we) gasp in shock. But they summon up the courage to continue, and the vocal texture thins as the guillotine relentlessly, ‘efficiently’, dispatches the nuns to the martyrdom they chose. When it seems like Sister Constance is the last nun left standing, Sister Blanche emerges from the gathered mob. As she mounts the scaffold, Blanche sings the final stanza of the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’, ‘Deo Patri sit gloria…’, the Catholic hymn traditionally used when taking vows in a religious community and offering one’s life to God.
The whole opera is about a surrender to God, despite the very real fear that surrounded those nuns in 1794, and any fears we may have in 2025.
