The Erato DVD of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, in Olivier Py's powerful production from the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées December 2013, has claimed the Académie Charles Cros award in the Best DVD category. The Grands Prix du Disque were presented at Radio France in Paris.

Comprised of 50 music industry critics and professionals and named in honour of Charles Cross, a pioneer of sound recording and a friend of the poets Rimbaud and Verlaine, the Académie was founded in 1947 to support French musicians and recording artists.

The production marked the 50th anniversary last year of Francis Poulenc's death and featured a stellar French cast headed by Patricia Petibon, Véronique Gens, Sophie Koch and Sandrine Piau. Its final scene, as the nuns go one by one to their execution while singing a soaring ‘Salve regina’, is a suspended moment of spine-tingling pathos and power.

The film has been widely praised in France and beyond since its release in November. In a five-star review of the DVD, The Guardian declared that "Poulenc’s opera about religious persecution in dark times has rarely been more devastating...Breathtakingly conducted by Jérémie Rohrer, it boasts one of the finest casts ever assembled for the piece. Patricia Petibon gives the performance of a lifetime as Blanche."

Find out more about this composer and his work in many different types of music here.