Thaïs

The legend of Saint Thaïs is the unlikely inspiration for one of the 19th century’s most sensuous operas. The story of an Alexandrian courtesan who rejects sin and turns to a Christian life of penitence and asceticism was popularised by Anatole France’s 1890 novel, which itself became the source for Jules Massenet’s opera, premiered in 1894 at Paris’s Opéra Garnier. While France’s novel focused provocatively on questions of religious hypocrisy and piety, the commercially minded Massenet instead turned his focus to the human drama. The inner conflicts and evolving characters of Thaïs and Athanaël—the monk who converts her before himself succumbing to temptation—are keenly drawn in an opera whose tug between spirituality and sexual desire is heightened by an exotic Middle Eastern setting. The ravishing “Meditation” from Thaïs—the Act II interlude for solo violin and orchestra that charts the heroine’s overnight conversion—has become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget its origins. It’s just one detail in a rich score, whose atmospheric scene-painting—the scope of the desert, the monk’s solemn chants, the gaudy ballet music—supplies the backdrop to some striking arias, including Thaïs’s dazzling showpiece “Dis-moi que je suis belle” (Tell me I am beautiful) and her tender “L’amour est une vertu rare” (Love is A Rare Virtue), as well as Athanaël’s vivid portrait of Alexandria’s wicked enticements, “Voila donc la terrible cité” (See the Terrible City).