Poulenc Asks That His Opera Be Sung in the Language of the Audience

The conductor stopped speaking to his wife years ago. They have breakfast in the sunroom, loosen small segments of grapefruit. Dress from their walk-in closets. He selects a favorite tuxedo.

Standing waist-deep in the orchestra pit, the conductor opens and closes his hands. A woman is seated so far stage right she can see him in his pocket of yellow light.

The woman doesn’t know the man seated on her left. His hands are smooth and quiet, like sparrows resting on his trousers.

It is a true story.

Before being led to slaughter, sixteen nuns are stripped of their habits. The first is taken away. Then the sound of the guillotine falling.

The woman can hear the conductor breathing. He pulls the lush carpet of notes into his body. Eyes closed, his head falls back.

Without turning, the unknown man on her left brushes her bare leg with the back of his hand. A gloss on the inside of her knee. Her husband is in the car napping. Too tired, too bored to come back in after intermission.

One by one the nuns exit the stage. A weighted blade, light as a whisper as it rushes. Then certain, caught.

The woman starts to cry. Lines of soldiers stand braced, their shadows thrown against the wall. She knew the story before she came. She sent a photo of herself to her husband. The camera balanced on the table. The self-timer went off while she was adjusting her shoe, smiling. She signed it only, “Your wife.”

The curtain call is long and persistent. Each layer of the cast moves forward, pale and unmasked, to bow. No one knows when it will come, the surge of applause—whose dying or singing will cause the audience to call out, to stand. The charming brother? Madame Lidoine? Certainly Blanche de la Force who could have escaped. They raise their joined arms and recede as though pulled backward. The flocking rows of human hands, beating like wings.