Dialogues des Carmélites

Dialogues des Carmélites ("Dialogues of the Carmelites") is a play by George Bernanos (1888-1948)[1].

The original text

The play is based on a 1947 film scenario which Bernanos had made of a story by Gertrude von Le Fort[2], portraying the sufferings and ultimate death on the guillotine of 16 Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution. Published posthumously in French as a drama in 1949.

Translations and adaptations

Translated into English a few times, e.g. as The Fearless Heart and The Carmelites, as well as The Chosen of God by Donald Inskip in 1955.

The play forms the basis of Dialogues des Carmélites, an opera in three acts, divided into twelve scenes with linking orchestral interludes, with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc, completed in 1956.

Filmed in 1960 as Le Dialogue des Carmélites[3]

Performance history of the play in South Africa

1955: Produced as The Chosen of God at the Little Theatre, Cape Town, by students of the School of Speech and Drama at the University of Cape Town, directed by Fred Engelen.

Performance history of the Poulenc opera in South Africa

1998: Presented by CAPAB Opera (5–11 October)

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Bernanos

Inskip, Donald P. 1972. Forty Little Years: The Story of a Theatre. Cape Town: Howard Timmins: p.142.

Wayne Muller. 2018. A reception history of opera in Cape Town: Tracing the development of a distinctly South African operatic aesthetic (1985–2015). Unpublished PhD thesis.

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