Photo:Laurent Guizard / Opéra de Rennes
Suzanne Daumann
The Opéra de Rennes team quite obviously are
not afraid of a challenge and do really care about making good music available
to more people. This production of Francis Poulenc’s difficult work is another
confirmation: the piano version will be
touring Brittany and smaller venues where there is no room for an orchestra –
and it is stunning ! Eric Chevalier’s staging is austere and very simple:
a room with blackboard walls is his only set, a few chairs, a bed, a few very
simple props, that is all it takes. His costumes are just as simple: the girls
are wearing normal street clothing, 40s style, only their veils unify and identify them as nuns. Light
projections, with clear and sober lines, sometimes lighten and identify the
set. The story has been condensed and shortened and is now concerned only with
life at the Carmel, the Prior’s death (incarnated with sobriety and conviction
by Martine Surais) and the martyrdom
of the Carmelites. This way, cutting right to the essential, one
understands better the fascination of this austere work: When following Blanche
de la Force’s way, everyone can confront themselves with their own questions
and fears. In times like these, when totalitarianism is gaining way everywhere,
they may be more justified than ever… Gildas Pungier conducts the choir of the Opéra de
Rennes, the pianist Colette Diard
and an excellent cast of singers with his usual sensitivity and energy. Without
the orchestra, the dialogues acquire a terrible intimacy and the pianist
accompanies them very attentively and delicately. Thus, the young and pure
voices of Blandine Arnould, as Blanche de la Force and of Violaine le Chenadec as Soeur
Constance, can express themselves pianissimo if necessary and are deeply,
breathtakingly, touching. The public’s reactions are often a merciless
indicator of an empty, slipshod or routine performance. Tonight in Rennes, the
public is immobile and concentrated, following the terrible story to the very
end. At the finale, a threatening individual, a
cross between a butcher and highway gangster, armed with a terrible knife,
comes on stage and stands in front of the Carmelites. They pass him by, one by
one, or in little groups, and get off stage. A big hard noise is heard from
beyond, the guillotine blade. Without the orchestra, the nuns’ Salve Regina,
and its slow fading away into one single voice, is particularly poignant. When
it has died away, there are a few seconds of deep silence, before the
much-deserved applause can set in.
