Abstract
<jats:p>The opera “Dialogues of the Carmelites” is one of the most beloved works of the 20th-century French composer Francis Poulenc, commissioned by the Milanese “La Scala” theater and successful on the main stages of Europe and America. In connection with the creation of the opera, the author of the work of the same name, which formed the basis of the libretto, the French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, is always mentioned. However, the original work, which was — in violation of copyright — subjected to theatrical adaptation, is practically unknown: the novella by the German writer Gertrud von Le Fort “The Last at the Scaffold”. It was G. von Le Fort, seeking to depict the atmosphere of horror shortly before the establishment of the Nazi regime, who developed a plot from the history of the French Revolution about the Carmelite nuns, which inspired both Bernanos and Poulenc. The article considers G. von Le Fort’s novella and the peculiarities of its stage adaptations. In his play, Bernanos makes the line that G. von Le Fort rejects as erroneous, i. e. the heroic line, the basis. Poulenc, relying entirely on the text and idea of Bernanos, allows, however, a variant of interpretation of his work, that is closer to the concept of G. von Le Fort than to that of the French writer.</jats:p>