about religion and the workings of divine grace that is never saccharine or merely consolatory: how hard it is to be good, how unsure the rewards of virtue." Performance history Poulenc expressed a general wish that the opera be performed in the vernacular of the local audience. Thus the opera was first performed in an Italian translation at La Scala on 26 January 1957, with Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani in the role of Blanche. The original French version premiered on 21 June that year by the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris (the current Opéra National de Paris), where Poulenc had chosen the Paris cast, which included Denise Duval (Blanche de la Force), Régine Crespin (Madame Lidoine), Rita Gorr (Mother Marie), and Liliane Berton (Sister Constance). The United States premiere took place three months later, on 20 September, in English, at San Francisco Opera, which featured the opera stage debut of Leontyne Price (as Madame Lidoine). The opera was first presented in New York City on 3 March 1966, in a staging by New York City Opera. The Metropolitan Opera first staged the opera in 1977, in a production by John Dexter, sung in the English translation of Joseph Machlis. The 1980 revival of this production utilised the original French text. Subsequent performances, until 2013, were generally sung in the English translation. The 2013 revivals of this production used the original French text, with another production undertaken in 2019, included as part of the Live in HD cinema series for that season. The opera is among a comparatively small number of post-Puccini works that have never lost their place in the international repertory. Roles Synopsis Place: Paris and Compiègne, 1789–94 Time: during the French Revolution Act 1 The opera opens with Marquis and Chevalier de la Force talking about the general unrest in France and their worries about Blanche, at a time when crowds stop carriages in the street and aristocrats are attacked. The pathologically timid Blanche de la Force decides to retreat from the world and enter a Carmelite convent. The Mother Superior informs her that the Carmelite Order is not a refuge; it is the duty of the nuns to guard the Order, not the other way around. In the convent, the chatterbox Sister Constance tells Blanche (to her consternation) that she has had a dream that the two of them will die young together. The prioress, who