More About Mid-Century French Operas

Charles Gounod again. Let’s find out more about what this composer does, because Faust was just my first exposure, and I cannot bring myself to watch a show called Romeo and Juliet, not yet.

La Nonne Sanglante (The Bloody Nun) is Gounod’s second opera (out of twelve), and it’s great, but it is hardly ever performed, and this is too bad.

The distinguishing factor in this music, I think, is the way it fits the characterizations of “ornamental” and “decorative”. As in Faust, the orchestra has a lot of work to do here, far beyond playing the melody or the backup. There are little frills and complexities added in there, all the time, and it’s as interesting to listen to the music as it is to hear the singers.

I like it. This is not as simple to follow and sing as tunes from my hero, Rossini, so I suppose you could say it competes well with Verdi (who was mid-career at this point).  In contrast to Verdi – I’m guessing – the score for the upper strings and winds will be twice as heavy. The messy “modern period” is still 40 years out, so we’ll be looking for more from Gounod, his French contemporaries, Berlioz and Bizet, and the fellows he influenced, like Massenet. And I suppose I’ll have to see Romeo and Juliet sometime.

Aside from that, this opera has the format we are familiar with from the bel canto era. Here’s the plot, there’s the solos from the tenor or the soprano (or in this one, the multiple basses), and then the periodic choruses.

At Opera Comique in 2018 (now on CueTV), Michael Spyres held it together; I didn’t recognize any other names. He has at least two show-stopping solos, nicely done. There’s also some interesting singing by the only pants role soprano I have ever seen: the young page Arthur, sung by the cute and energetic young Jodie Devos, who we very unfortunately lost just last June (2024).

Always Check First, Under the Blood-Soaked Veil

To me, Gounod and his writers Scribe (yes, Auber’s main librettist) and Delavigne have put together a gripping story (it’s a ghost story!) with excellent development, balance of tragedy and comedy, mystery and love. I like the music and the solos, and I couldn’t guess how this tale was going to wind up.

Add one to the list of operas that show a romance between two people on opposite sides of a terrible war. (Best to skip the usual questions, such as “How did you two first meet?”, and “Please describe a typical date.”)

The big problem is, young Rodolphe can’t distinguish his fiancé Agnes from a frightening ghost girl, so he marries the dead lady instead, by mistake. This stresses his relationship with Agnes, and it turns out, he can only solve that by killing his own father.  Big problems in this family.

But this is an interesting and unusual plot, and they take regular breaks from shaking in terror about the chilling ghost, to do some dancing in the woods, quite pleasant. They get it all sorted, and end the war, and they all sing some remarkable songs in the process.

Halloween Opera

So why is La Nonne so rarely performed?  Not obvious; it’s clear that this one didn’t get much traction in 1854 at the opening, but that was said to be because of an opera director named Crozier who didn’t like the story, and cancelled the run. Yet it didn’t do very well at any of the other performances since then, and there aren’t many.

Maybe it needs a more acceptable title. The Bloody Nun? Doesn’t sound too wholesome; people will stay away. I suggest: Which Agnes are You?, or The Bride With a Shiv, or Papa Offs a Sister. Just some ideas.

Here’s my guess: I think it’s hard to catch serious attention when one of your main characters is a ghost. This takes the story outside of reality, and the show becomes appealing entertainment, but not emotionally relatable for most of us.

Too bad, because this bloody nun is a really cool and spooky spirit. Marion Lebègue’s got the weird expressions and the oddly deliberate movements, so that’s creepy. And I need to find out how they did that to her eyes. She has no irises, just tiny pupils bugging out of the whites, good lord. Completely white contact lenses, I guess. I want a pair.

I don’t think the knock-out problem is the odd plot point at the start, where they choose Rodolphe’s ugly big brother to marry Agnes (instead of Rodolphe himself, who already loves Agnes). The purpose of the marriage, from the warring families’ point of view, is to stop the war by tying them together. So why does it have to be the big brother? Just switch off to little Rodolphe in Act 1. But nobody thinks of that, except me.

Also, the ending seemed a little opaque, though it’s probably not the writers’ fault. In this production, everything got wrapped up and the happy couple were together, very quickly, and I couldn’t tell what had happened, in the crowd of people with knives, right at the end.

They need to make it clear that the dad takes the fall for his son, and that is what everybody wants, meaning that his dying is okay with the dad, the son, the warring families, and, of course, the ghost lady with the eyes. The fact that they all agreed on everything was something I had to read about on Wikipedia after the curtain went down, and they didn’t have that option in 1854.