The Dialogues of the Carmelites
Photos and Audience Letters

Photos by Hillary Honeck

Dear Sung Jin,

I’m a friend of one your musicians, and she invited me along to your production on Friday night of Dialogues of the Carmelites in Brooklyn. I absolutely loved the performance: it was deeply moving, and I was crying throughout the final scene — and even after the performance. This morning I posted this on Facebook, and thought you might appreciate seeing it:

“Saw two operas in the last 48 hours: Dialogues of the Carmelites (concert version) at the One World Symphony in Brooklyn, and Traviata at the Met. Completely mesmerized by one, fairly underwhelmed by the other. Any guesses which got my vote?”

Many congratulations on a lovely performance.

Greetings and congratulations on another great performance on Friday!

I want to also express my appreciation for your selection of this opera. It is not one with which I was familiar, but the French sound and non-love story plot were refreshing and enjoyable. [I can’t be the only one tired of Italian love stories, can I? ;—) ]

Wonderful performance and I look forward to Nordic Lights. The northern sound is another fresh, exciting sound I don’t hear enough of — can’t wait! 

My wife couldn’t go, so I took one of her opera buddies, who also thoroughly enjoyed it. She had seen the opera at NYC Opera, I believe, and liked the One World Symphony concert better. She’s very likely to come to the Wagner and also the Grieg... so I think you may have a new “convert.”

Have you, Adrienne, and the symphony thought about opening a restaurant? You would be about good ingredients, the presentation, and all about the food — simply amazing and delicious. This has been the One World Symphony experience that we are accustomed to having — inspiring performances every single time.

The special sound made by your musicians and the story moved me deeply. It was a unique experience how we were held breathless after the last chord and we remained silent for possibly longer than two minutes. Thank you for allowing us to focus and reflect on the music that we heard. If Mr. Poulenc were present, I believe he would have also appreciated your vision, pacing and interpretation of his opera including the indeterminate silence. Cage’s 4'33 seems like a pretentious effect, but the performance and silence we all experienced last night were powerful and healing.

I was looking forward to the back-rubs and your talk about the opera. The church was cold and we would have welcomed the group back rubs during intermission. The performance was so exciting and engaging that I forgot how cold it was during the show.

Did you plan your talk to be the long pause after the final note of the opera? The suspended silence united everyone blending our thoughts and emotions. We were rapt with attention throughout the evening and the silence was heard. It was extraordinary.

Hi Sung Jin,

A bit of news... My son auditioned for and got a spot in the Met Opera Children’s Chorus. I wanted to thank you for introducing him to opera as one of the fox cubs in Vixen. He really enjoyed that experience and asked if he could do other things like that. So I signed him up to audition for the Met. I have to say the audition from my perspective was horrible (I don’t have personal experience with these things) but evidently he did well. There were only a few spots and about 100 kids auditioned.

He begins on Tuesday in the beginner class, so we’ll see how it goes. It seems there are stages: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Once you are in the advanced group you can audition for productions. But thought you’d like to know how working with your group has created interest and opportunities.