In a haunting final gesture, the Carmelite nuns signed their names on the surrounding walls. Then to the music of the “Salve Regina,” we heard the guillotine blade fall with a sickening, metallic sound accompanied by a blinding flash of light – over and over again. It was a horrific and visceral conclusion to Francis Poulenc’s “Dialogues of the Carmelites” mounted in Corbett Auditorium this weekend by the opera department at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
Poulenc’s…
