Photo courtesy of Bob McCormack/Tulsa Opera Opera reaches a spiritual high in this weekend's Arizona Opera production of "Dialogues of the Carmelites."

"Opera is unnatural in the same way that ballet is unnatural."

These are the words of UA music professor Charles Roe, director of the Arizona Opera Theater.

"People don't walk around on their toes, but when you see it (on stage), it seems perfectly natural, perfectly beautiful," Roe said. "That is the perfect beauty of art."

Roe acts as well as philosophizes, playing a French aristocrat in heels on a stage slanted toward the audience in the upcoming, haunting Arizona Opera production of "Dialogues of the Carmelites."

The 20th century opera is based on the memoirs of a Carmelite nun during the French Revolution. "Dialogues" follows the story of fictional Blanche de la Force, a young nun struggling to find her faith, then with the paralyzing fear of death.

"It's dramatic and beautiful," said Liz Warren, public relations manager for the Arizona Opera Theater. "People leave the theater emotionally charged and disturbed at the same time."

Every other year, Arizona Opera brings a contemporary piece to Phoenix and Tucson.

"It's nice to be able to include operas that don't get a lot of coverage," Warren said. "They are the future of opera."

The show is directed by Anne Ewers, currently the director of Utah Opera, and renowned as an artist of unusual skill and sensitivity.

"Each time I've directed the piece, I've been in a different place spiritually," Ewers said in an interview with Warren, "and when I get the call, I think, 'Hmmm, I wonder where I'll be spiritually at that point.'"

Ewers accepts the direction of "Dialogues" every time it's offered to her. She first directed the piece as a graduate student in Austin, Texas.

"I worked with every aspect of it - lights, sets, everything - and as a devout Catholic, I really connected with it,"

Ewers said. "The second time was in Boston, and by that point I had left the Church, was extremely angry, and was looking at the piece through that prism. The third time was in Edmonton, and I found certain truths there that I hadn't grasped before. Then I directed it in Vancouver, and it was one of the most moving spiritual experiences of my life."

The opera delves into the terror of the French Revolution from a psychological standpoint.

"There is so much in the way of violence and gore in film and television - and opera, too," Warren said. "Though 'Dialogues' is not without bloodshed, most of the 'action' is of a psychological nature."

Each time Ewers directs the piece, she takes her cast to visit a Carmelite monastery. The idea of adopting a life so simple and the issue of sainthood are hard for many of the cast members to take, but understanding that thought process is a bonding experience for the cast.

"A poignant example of this came a month or two after the Boston production, when one cast member was diagnosed with cancer," Ewers said. "All of the gals who had been nuns visited her in the hospital one day, near the end, she said, 'I now understand the transference of grace.'"

"Dialogues of the Carmelites" runs Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Tucson Convention Center Music Hall, 260 S. Church St. Tickets run $25, $40, $55 and $72. Discounts are offered to students with valid ID. To order, call Ticketmaster at 321-1000 or the opera at 293-4336.