It’s becoming a habit.  For the fifth time this season I went back to take a second look at a COC production.  This time it was Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.  We were in our usual seats at the front of the Orchestra Ring rather than at the back of Ring 3 where I was on opening night.  I still didn’t notice any real issues of orchestra/singer balance, which had been complained of by some reviewers.  Maybe it was an issue towards the front of the Orchestra where the press tend to be?

What struck me again was the strangely immersive quality of the piece.  It really sucks one in and what might be, perhaps ought to be, really boring is quite compelling.  Poulenc’s music makes the characters impossible to ignore.  I think it was easier to appreciate Carsen’s stage craft from lower down too.  There are several places where he uses, in effect, a human curtain to make a scene change.  For example, the menacing crowd moves slowly across a bare stage leaving the trashed version of the Marquis de la Force’s house behind them and then return later to remove it in the same way.  It’s a clever way of making the changes without taking the audience out of the action (though a small section of that audience did seem desperate to applaud every time there was a pause in the music).

All in all though I don’t see any reason to fundamentally alter my opening night review.  There are still four performances left between today and next Saturday and, despite stellar reviews, it hasn’t been selling that well so there are tickets available.  It’s a compelling piece of theatre and who knows when it will be seen again in Toronto.