Performer: Judith Forst

Alek Shrader, Judith Forst, and Tracy Dahl dazzle and amuse in Vancouver Symphony's presentation of Bernstein's operetta. 

32-year-old Nico Muhly recently tweeted “I'm obsessed with people asking why I must write such ‘atonal music.

Francis Poulenc’s 1957 opera Dialogues des Carmélites has the virtues of necessity. Director Robert Carsten’s production puts these virtues before us in simple black and white. The virtues begin with the story: Blanche, an aristocrat afraid of the French Revolution who hopes to find refuge in a nunnery, becomes a refugee of religious persecution, and chooses to die a martyr with her sisters.