Francis Poulenc’s opera about the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne is a compelling account of the sacrifice of this community of Carmelite nuns during the French Revolution. While some aspects of the Poulenc opera have been altered from historical events, the basic facts are correct. The opera played recently at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City (for a review, click here) and is scheduled to be performed at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, MD in November, 2013. Want to know more? Check out Fr. Leopold Gluekert’s new CarmelStream post. An excellent resource is “To Quell The Terror: The Mystery of the Vocation of the Sixteen Carmelites of Compiegne Guillotined July 17, 1794, by William Bush.available through the Institute of Carmelite Studies.
