For the students in the Juilliard School's vocal arts program, works like Poulenc's wrenching ''Dialogues des Carmélites,'' which the Juilliard Opera is now presenting at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, are a crucial counterweight to centerpieces of the operatic canon. The enduring 19th-century bread-and-butter works teach young singers that melodic...

THE JAZZ AGE IN FRANCE By Charles A. Riley II. Illustrated. 176 pp. Harry N. Abrams. $45. ''DON'T economize. Just go pagan!'' Gerald Murphy scribbled on a postcard to a friend in the mid-1920's. It was easy advice to give for the man who was F. Scott Fitzgerald's model bon vivant. The income of Murphy's wife, Sara -- $7,000 a year -- wasn't pocket...

''Dialogues of the Carmelites'' is a meditation on death by men on the far side of middle age, contemplating their own mortality. The story of 16 nuns guillotined by French revolutionaries in 1794 is true. Georges Bernanos, in his play 150 years later, used history to confront his own terminal cancer. Francis Poulenc, six years from his own death...
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7. januar 1899 i Paris - 30. januar 1963 i Paris) var en fransk komponist og pianist. På et tidspunkt var de tre Mouvements perpétuels fra 1918 de mest kendte af hans værker, men det mest succesfulde er nok operaen Karmelitindernes samtaler (Dialogues des Carmélites).
Det var Poulencs mor, en amatørpianist, der lærte ham at spille klaver.
Selvom Poulenc foretrak livet i byen, måtte han for at få ro og ensomhed tage på landet. Han opholdt sig derfor derfor meget i Noizay i Loire-dalen, hvor han havde et hus. Han fandt dog livet på landet kedeligt og hadede at gå tur.
Han komponerede mens han gjorde militærtjeneste. Han gjorde militærtjeneste to gange, første gang i januar 1918. Han måtte afsone en dom på 10 dage for at komme for sent tilbage efter en orlov i Paris. Fold ud