Dialogues of the Carmelites, San Francisco Opera

Scene from Act III of Dialogues of the Carmelites

Photo by Corey Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera

• Joshua Kosman, SF Chronicle
• Steven Winn, SFCV
• Lisa Hirsch, Opera News (to come)
• Michael Anthonio, Parterre Box 
• Michael Strickland, SF Civic Center
• Opera Tattler
• Matthew Gurewitsch, Air Mail
• Richard Bammer, Vacaville Reporter

First off, a question, which you cannot answer by consulting the San Francisco Opera archives: how many roles has Heidi Stober (Blanche de la Force) previously sung at SFO?

My review, which I'll eventually be able to link to, makes reference to the sculptural and painterly nature of the sets and direction of Olivier Py's production of Dialogues of the Carmelites, which you can see for four more performances at San Francisco Opera. The photo above (click to enlarge) is representative of the deeply beautiful, just slightly abstract, staging. 

The lighting contributes to the effect, and I will say that the singers held three of these tableaux (annunciation, nativity, crucifixion) very briefly, for maybe ten seconds. The last supper tableaux held for quite a bit longer; it's when the nuns know that they're going to die and are waiting to be executed. There's no photo of that scene among the SFO press photographs, but there is one in Joshua Kosman's review, linked above.

Dialogues famously had its US premiere at SF Opera in September, 1957, not long after its premiere at La Scala in January, 1957. In SF, Madame Lidoine, the New Prioress, was sung by Leontyne Price, who was, astonishingly, making her operatic debut as well. She returned to the company in the same role in 1982, the last time SFO produced this opera. 

Her co-stars in 1982 included the young Carol Vaness as Blanche, Virginia Zeani as Mere Marie, and the great Regine Crespin as Madame de Croissy, the Old Prioress. Her death scene must have been something. I note that the 1982 bring-up followed Poulenc's desire that the opera be presented in the local language, not in French. With the advent of supertitles, this has fallen by the wayside, and I'm sorry for that, although I also have to say that I'm sure that the opera sounds and flows better in French than in English. Poulenc was a great composer of songs and it really shows in how he handles the text in Dialogues.

Dialogues is based on a true story, of the 16 Carmelite nuns who were executed on July 17, 1794, during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.  There's a plaque in their memory at Picpus Cemetery in Paris, where they are buried. The opera's title is entirely appropriate; the characters spend a lot of time talking about fear, about death, about God, about religious life. The music is gorgeous and very French: transparent, flowing, lightly but beautifully scored. When Poulenc's orchestra goes above mezzo-forte, it has more impact than you might think.

Over on Twitter, I got up on a soapbox to wonder how on earth this great opera, which is profound, beautiful, and deeply human, managed to be absent from the War Memorial Opera House for forty years. The best I can come up with is that it's expensive to do (the cast is huge) and maybe not popular, but a company that managed to stage five Ring bring-ups in two different productions, Die Meistersinger (four times), Les Troyens, and St. Francois, can manage to stage Dialogues more than once every forty years. It's not as heinous as skipping La Boheme for four decades, but SFO has also staged Billy Budd (the male counterpart to Dialogues?) three times and Jenufa three times.

It certainly hasn't been for lack of appropriate singers, either. Patricia Racette has sung Blanche, Madame Lidoine and, more recently, Madame de Croissy, to name just one SFO regular. Take a look back through the archives and you'll find plenty of singers suitable for every one of the nuns. The male leads are smallish parts and not difficult to cast; Ben Bliss is luxury casting for the Chevalier de la Force.

I brought Racette into this discussion for another reason. She sang an enormous number of roles at SFO, from the Aida Priestess in 1989 to the biggest starring roles (Butterfly, Mimi, Musetta, Violetta, Elena/Margherita, Dolores Claiborne, Tosca, etc., etc.). At the start of her career, and through the first ten or so years, she was the soprano who could do everything, and did it all pretty well. You need a Mathilde for William Tell, sure, or a Luisa for Luisa Miller? She was your singer.

My recollection is that somewhere around 2000 or so, she suddenly became one of the most gripping and dramatically compelling singers around. There was a Met Mimi, of all things, that really got me, then the Jenufa here, and a long series of roles at SFO and elsewhere that went straight to the heart. I saw her most recently as Salome (!) and Kostelnicka in Jenufa and she was outstanding in both.

So let's get back to Heidi Stober. I saw her for the first time 15 years ago in Santa Fe, singing the smallish role of Tigrane, Prince of Pontus, a pants role, in Santa Fe Opera's Radamisto. She made enough of an impression for me to remember her name, and she was in there with some big names: David Daniels, Laura Claycomb, Luca Pisaroni. (First time I heard Pisaroni as well!)

Stober went on to become a regular at San Francisco Opera, and here I will give you the answer to my question above: Blanche is her thirteen role here, and they've all been leads. She has been a solid performer since 2010-11 in wide range of parts, including Susanna, Pamina, Sophie, Norina, Oscar, Gretel, Johanna, Nanette, Magnolia Hawkes, and more. I thought her Zdenka in Arabella one of the best performances in what was a fairly drab production (the other really memorable singer was Richard Paul Fink as the Count, her father.)

I think that Blanche is a big dramatic step up for Stober in some ineffable way, that her acting went above and beyond most of what we've seen from her before, a continuation of her excellent work as Zdenka. I'm wondering if she's going to be like Patricia Racette, hitting her stride and becoming one of our most intense and fulfilling singers. For Racette, it seems that her mother's death released something inside her. I remember Karita Mattila also saying that a change in her life was a factor in her growth as an actor, speaking of intense stage presences. I don't know whether Stober has had any dramatic life events in the last few years, but I like her current trajectory and look forward to her future work, here and elsewhere.