La Nonne Sanglante

In a medieval Bohemia troubled by hereditary conflicts, Rodolphe defies his father and challenges his ancestors out of love for the rival clan’s daughter, offered as a pledge of peace to his own brother. But Agnès is astoundingly like the ghost who haunts Moldaw’s castle. On a libretto drawn on The Monk by Matthew Lewis, a Gothic novel in vogue among the Romantics, La Nonne sanglante inspired Gounod with his second opera. The prudish director of the Opéra cancelled it despite its polished, gloomy and labyrinthine score, serving a text that highlighted impulses still unexplored. The Opéra Comique has entrusted the revival of La Nonne Sanglante to three great enthusiasts of Romantic torments: Laurence Equilbey as conductor, David Bobée as stage director and Michael Spyres who played a fiery Masaniello in La Muette de Portici.