Dialogues of the Carmelites by Francis Poulenc

Glimmerglass Opera's Alice Busch Opera Theater. Credit: Bruce Scott This week, World of Opera continues a stay at one of our favorite summer opera festivals -- Glimmerglass Opera, in upstate New York. The company is located about 10 miles north of Cooperstown, famous as home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The Village of Cooperstown was also home to the author James Fenimore Cooper, whose house is now a museum, and who actually helped to name the opera company that now brings even more visitors to the historic locale. The Fenimore Home, the Village of Cooperstown, and the opera house all lie on the shores of Otsego Lake -- a body of water called "Glimmerglass" in Fenimore Cooper's classic, Leatherstocking Tales. Like many operas, the one we'll hear from Glimmerglass this week is filled with emotional torment and tragedy. But in this one -- instead of opera's more usual "affairs of the the heart" -- the subject is spiritual conflict, and the psychological scars and emotional pain that can so easily result from it. The opera is Francis Poulenc's harrowing drama of faith and martyrdom, Dialogues of the Carmelites. The standout production we'll be hearing is a great example of what brings opera-goers back to Glimmerglass season after season -- and why The Wall Street Journal wrote of Glimmerglass Opera: "This rural oasis of lakeside charm, history, art and baseball has become the ideal spot for opera-going in the U.S." We couldn't have said it better. In fact, as Poulenc's opera is beaming over the Public Radio satellite system, the World of Opera crew is busy on the shore of Otsego Lake, recording yet another repertory season at Glimmerglass Opera. Check out the Glimmerglass link below to find out what's in store when those recordings hit the airwaves.

Conductor: Stewart Robertson Cast: PAGLIACCI: John McMaster (Canio); Marie Plette (Nedda); Ned Barth (Tonio); Ray Fellman (Silvio); Nicholas Phan (Beppe); CAVALLERIA: Eugenie Grunewald (Santuzza); Keith Ikaia-Purdy (Turiddu); Josepha Gayer (Lucia); Brian Montgomery (Alfio); Heather Johnson (Lola)

Web Resources

• Glimmerglass Opera
• Synopsis of the Opera from New York's Metropolitan Opera
• Composer Francis Poulenc Classical Net
• Carmelite Web Site 2005

Next week we'll wind up this summer's broacast season from Glimmerglass with a "Spaghetti Western." It's Puccini's Girl of the Golden West, a tale of the California Gold Rush from the king of Italian, verisimo opera.

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