Saint Francois d'Assise
The other night, we were fortunate enough to attend the San Francisco Opera performance of Olivier Messiaen's 1983 opera, Saint Francois d'Assise.
This was the first staging of this 5-hour opera in North America; and a very rare occurrence. I don't know for opera (this was my first), but the experience was enlightening, entertaining, gruelling, captivating, and (literally) awesome.
Messiaen was a church organist in France, and a devoted Catholic. Saint Francis of Assisi lived in the 12th & 13th centures. Though Messiaen wrote a very modern music, his theology was medievel. When approaching a work of art like this one, just as when one reads materials actually written a thousand years ago, it requires an effort at suspension of disbelief to open yourself to the vision the artist is expressing. It's a tribute to the San Francisco Opera, in large part, that the effort is minimal, and that the prsentation seems so true to Messiaen's vision.
In terms of what is usually meant by the words "plot" and "story," the opera was nearly bereft. It tells the story of Francis' growth from "Francis" to "Saint Francis" to sort of an apotheosis of Francis. To us, the difference is minimal: Francis at the beginning is so devout, so committed to the life of the cross, that his progression to kissing the leper, to preaching to the birds, and finally to the stigmata, seems smaller than the progression from, say, my thinking, to Francis' original place. It's not "story," melodrama as you find it in most other operas, but there's a drama nonetheless.
I don't have the vocabulary to say much about the music, but it was fabulous, otherworldly. Part and parcel of Messiaen's theology is to get beyond time (time is a big theme of the story, as it is in Catholic theology). As the Director of the San Francisco Opera pointed out, music is a time-bound form; you could feel the composer struggling with his attempts to transcend time. Though one's butt, sitting in those perhaps too-small seats, definitely reminded one of one's own slavery to time.
A wonderful experience, one that has stayed with me dramatically for the five days since I've seen it. I lack the real vocabulary to do anything more than describe the experience; if, for me, it wasn't life-transforming, it was still one of the most profound experiences of an artwork I've ever had.
8:26:13 PM Permalink
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