abstract:Dialogues des carmélites (Dialogues of the Carmelites) is a 1956 French-language opera in twelve scenes and several orchestral interludes, grouped into three acts, by Francis Poulenc. It is the composer's second opera; he wrote the libretto himself after a scheme by Georges Bernanos.
He also wrote profound song cycles, gorgeous chamber music and a powerful opera, "Dialogues oftheCarmelites" (1957), whose subject is religious martyrdom and which the Metropolitan Opera will be reviving this spring for the first time since 2003.
The fact that the Met's "Dialogues oftheCarmelites" has stayed fresh and vital for nearly four decades is thus an eloquent tribute to the imagination of John Dexter but it also says much about the enduring significance of modernism itself.