Poulenc: The Carmelites Vocal & Song Opera in English Opera In English

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Poulenc: The Carmelites

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CHAN 3134

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Multiple Set of 2 CDs

Poulenc: The Carmelites

Release Date: September 2006
Originally recorded in October 2005

Composer (1899-1963)
Francis Poulenc

Solo baritone - Marquis de la Force
Ashley Holland

Solo soprano - Blanche de la Force
Catrin Wyn-Davies

Tenor Voice tenor - Chevalier de la Force
Peter Wedd

Solo baritone - Thierry
Gary Coward

Solo soprano - Off-stage voice
Natalie Herman

Mezzo Voice mezzo-soprano - Madame de Croissy
Felicity Palmer

Solo soprano - Mother Marie
Dame Josephine Barstow

Solo soprano - Madame Lidoine
Orla Boylan

Soprano Voice soprano - Sister Constance
Sarah Tynan

Solo mezzo-soprano - Mother Jeanne
Jane Powell

Solo mezzo-soprano - Sister Mathilde
Anne Marie Gibbons

Solo tenor - The Chaplain
Ryland Davies

Solo baritone - Monsieur Javelinot
William Berger

Solo tenor - First Commissioner
James Edwards

Solo baritone - Second Commissioner
Roland Wood

Solo baritone - First Officer
Toby Stafford-Allen

Solo baritone - Gaoler
David Stephenson

Choral
English National Opera Chorus

Orchestra
English National Opera Orchestra

Conductor
Paul Daniel

Venue
Blackheath Halls, London

Producer
Brian Couzens

Engineer
Ralph Couzens

Engineer (Assistant)
Michael Common

Genre:
Vocal & Song
Opera in English

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FRANCIS POULENC

(1899-1963)

The Carmelites

144:15

Opera in three acts

Libretto by the composer after Georges Bernanos' play Dialogue des Carmélites, revised English version by Joseph Machlis

COMPACT DISC ONE

Act I

Scene 1

1.

'Where is Blanche?'

7:23

Chevalier de la Force, Marquis de la Force

2.

'Blanche, your poor brother was so very impatient'

3:31

Marquis, Blanche de la Force, Chevalier

3.

'Her poor imagination always flies from one extreme to another'

1:43

Marquis, Chevalier, Blanche, Thierry

4.

'Dear father, there is no incident so small or unimportant'

4:05

Blanche, Marquis

Scene 2

5.

Prelude

1:42

6.

'Do not believe this comfortable chair is a privilege'

3:08

7.

'What has driven you here?'

1:31

8.

'My daughter, the outside world often questions'

5:36

Madame de Croissy (Prioress), Blanche

Scene 3

9.

Prelude

2:37

10.

'Oh no, not more beans!'

7:09

Constance, Blanche

Scene 4

11.

Prelude

2:11

12.

'Would you be so kind as to raise my pillow'

8:22

Prioress, Mother Marie

13.

'You may get up my child'

5:09

Prioress, Blanche, Monsieur Javelinot

14.

'Monsieur Javelinot, you must know it's customary'

3:42

Prioress, Mother Marie

15.

'Please inform your sisters'

3:08

Mother Marie, Prioress, Blanche

Act II

Scene 1

16.

'Qui Lazarum resuscutasti a monumento foetidum'

2:20

Constance, Blanche

17.

'What are you doing?'

2:52

Mother Marie, Blanche

Interlude

18.

'Dear Sister, I'm afraid that our cross'

3:55

Constance, Blanche

Scene 2

19.

'My dear daughters, I don't need to remind you'

5:41

Madame Lidoine (the new Prioress), Mother Marie

20.

'Ave Maria'

1:45

Mother Marie, Carmelites, Prioress

Interlude

21.

'What is going on?'

2:09

Prioress, Constance, Mother Marie

79:50

COMPACT DISC TWO

Scene 3

1.

Prelude

1:45

2.

'Blanche, why do you believe like this?'

7:22

Chevalier, Blanche

3.

'Compose yourself, Sister Blanche'

1:50

Mother Marie, Blanche

Scene 4

4.

'My faithful daughters, I know that some among you'

3:28

Chaplain, Carmelites

5.

'But what will become of you?'

2:51

Blanche, Chaplain, Constance, Sister Mathilde, Prioress, Mother Marie

6.

'Someone is ringing the bell'

1:09

Constance, Sister Mathilde, Crowd, Chaplain, Carmelites

7.

'Open the door, open the door now!'

4:09

Voice, Mother Marie, First Commissioner, Second Commissioner

8.

'My sisters, our Reverend Mother is coming'

1:54

Mother Jeanne, Blanche, Mother Marie, Crowd

Act III

Scene 1

9.

'Father, speak to them'

4:22

Mother Marie, Chaplain, Mother Jeanne, Sister Mathilde

10.

'There is only one vote against. That is enough'

3:13

Mother Marie, Sister Mathilde, Constance

Interlude

11.

'Fellow citizens, we congratulate you'

2:22

Officer

12.

'Sister Gerald, we have to warn the priest'

1:46

Prioress, Mother Marie

Scene 2

13.

Prelude

1:53

14.

'It's you!'

5:31

Blanche, Mother Marie, Woman's Voice

Scene 3

15.

'My daughters, we have almost come to the end'

4:09

Prioress, Mother Jeanne

16.

'And what of Sister Blanche?'

0:36

Constance, Prioress, Sister Mathilde

17.

''The Tribunal of the Revolution declares''

2:27

Gaoler

18.

'May daughters, I wanted to save you'

2:07

Prioress

Interlude

19.

'It is done. They have been condemned'

1:56

Chaplain, Mother Marie

Scene 4

20.

Prelude

2:41

21.

'Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae'

6:45

Prioress, Mother Jeanne, Sister Mathilde, Constance, Carmelites, Blanche

64:25

Solo: Ashley Holland baritone - Marquis de la Force

Solo: Catrin Wyn-Davies soprano - Blanche de la Force

Solo: Gary Coward baritone - Thierry

Solo: Natalie Herman soprano - Off-stage voice

Solo: Dame Josephine Barstow soprano - Mother Marie

Solo: Orla Boylan soprano - Madame Lidoine

Solo: Jane Powell mezzo-soprano - Mother Jeanne

Solo: Anne Marie Gibbons mezzo-soprano - Sister Mathilde

Solo: Ryland Davies tenor - The Chaplain

Solo: William Berger baritone - Monsieur Javelinot

Solo: James Edwards tenor - First Commissioner

Solo: Roland Wood baritone - Second Commissioner

Solo: Toby Stafford-Allen baritone - First Officer

Solo: David Stephenson baritone - Gaoler

Choral: English National Opera Chorus

Orchestra: English National Opera Orchestra

Conductor: Paul Daniel

20-26 October 2005

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Reviews

"... It’s one of the most surprising and rewarding of Chandos’s Opera in English series."

Hugh Canning – The Sunday Times (Culture magazine) – 10 May 2020

Josephine Barstow as the assistant prioress brought both a vocal and dramatic command to her role, as did Catrin Wyn-Davies to the central character, Blanche de la Force.

Online Review London

Catrin Wyn-Davies acted Blanche most affectingly, unfailingly catching the contrasting facets of the character.

Opera Magazine

Catrin Wyn-Davies acted Blanche most affectingly, unfailingly catching the contrasting facets of the character.

Opera Magazine

It is a marvellous ensemble performance, gut-wrenching at the end as the ‘chorus’ dwindles into a solo as each member perishes on the scaffold.

Sunday Times

Daniel captures the cumulative momentum of this series of dialogues within a community in the shadow of revolution. Felicity Palmer’s Old Prioress and Josephine Barstow’s characterful Mother Marie are here particularly strongly cast, with Orla Boylan as an eloquent Madame Lidoine. The young voices of Catrin Wyn-Davies and Sarah Tynan are nicely complementary as Blanche and Constance – and the recording makes good use of space and depth of field.

BBC Music Magazine

Paul Daniel paces it magnificently, building up inexorably to that heart-stopping final scene and moving the music along so that we, too, feel ourselves swept up in events over which we have no control, even when the ultimate tragedy is so inevitable. Daniel’s intense reading, the moments of silence every bit as telling as the most full-bloodied sounds, draws stunning orchestral playing from the English National opera musicians.

International Record Review

Paul Daniel conducts a strong lyrical performance, finding the secret of Poulenc’s delicate and always apposite orchestration. As Blanche, the novice whose nerve fails her, Catrin Wyn-Davies sings movingly throughout; her scene with Sarah Tynan’s adorable sister Constance is a touching highlight. Felicity Palmer’s powerful Old Prioress sends a chill down the spine, and Josephine Barstow gives a riveting portrayal of Mother Marie. The studio recording is clear and well up to this label’s high standards.

Sunday Telegraph

Josephine Barstow as the assistant prioress brought both a vocal and dramatic command to her role, as did Catrin Wyn-Davies to the central character, Blanche de la Force.

Online Review London

Just as the guillotined nuns derived collective strength from their shared suffering, so the individual qualities of a fine cast combine to create a truly powerful performance of Poulenc’s post-war psychological masterpiece. The characters, singing in English, range from felicity palmer’s ageing contralto Prioress howling at the horrors of a slow bed-ridden death to Sarah Tynan’s high soprano novice gleefully embracing the quick oblivion of the blade. Catrin Wyn-Davies’s Blanche tries occasionally but we feel her torment. Daniel conducts an incisive band, while the chorus sings a haunting Ave Verum.

The Times

Poulenc stated that his Dialogues should be performed in the language of the country, something rarely practiced today…Intelligibility is extraordinary…

Fanfare

There is a frission between the often statuesque music from the orchestra and the urgency – and musicality – with which Catrin Wyn-Davies’s Blanche and Josephine Barstow’s Mother Marie, in particular, articulate their lines as they face their tragic fate. The Old Prioress’s ‘bad death’ is vividly enacted by Felicity Palmer while, at the other end of the scale Sister Constance’s youthful innocence is tellingly portrayed by Sarah Tynan. The English text comes through with particular clarity, even across an orchestra that seems truly energised by Daniel’s conducting.

The Telegraph

Not that the ENO Orchestra needs flattering: the playing is exceptionally responsive to everything demanded of it by Poulenc, and the warm sound devised by Chandos’ Brian and Ralph Couzens emphasizes the similar warmth felt by the composer for his characters. He loved them for their strengths and for their frailties, and Paul Daniel, in what was surely on of his best undertakings at ENO, loves and understands them too. The moments of violence and pain are there, but this reading as a whole is one of lyricism, tenderness and compassion.

Opera

This studio recording based on a recent ENO production is worth buying for several of the performances alone: Felicity palmer is terrifyingly good as a Prioress dying in fear and agony, and Josephine Barstow and Orla Boylan are superb too. Paul Daniel’s conducting is also beautifully judged.

Classic FM Magazine

It’s conducted with implacable menace by Paul Daniel, and superbly played.. Catrin Wyn-Davies is an impressive Blanche, tellingly exposing the neuroses that lie behind the girl’s spirituality, while Josephine Barstow is truly terrifying as the near fundamentalist Mother Marie.

The Guardian

ENO’s recent production of Poulenc’s great tragedy (sung in English) was unforgettable in the theatre and makes compelling listening on disc: a showpiece of marvellous singing, with Cathryn Wyn-Davies’s Blanche, Josephine Barstow’s Mother Marie and Felicity Palmer’s Old Prioress leading a brilliant ensemble cast. Paul Daniels encourages rich-hued playing from the ENO orchestra.

The Telegraph ‘Discs of the Year’

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