On Monday, November 28, the ornate Second Empire Palais Gamier in Paris, home of the Paris Opéra, was the scene of an unusual event: the world premiere of an opera by the elder statesman of French composers, Olivier Messiaen, entitled Saint François d’Assise. The opera, the 75-year-old Messiaen’s first (and almost certainly last) such work, was presented before an audience of the composer’s partisans and friends, critics from Europe and the United States, and the usual sprinkling of official figures, not least among them the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Lustiger, who professed afterward not to have been an instant bored by the almost five hours of music. On Thursday, there followed the inaugural gala of the opera before le tout Paris, tenue de soirée obligée (in black or white tie). The opening was followed by six further performances, most of the tickets for which had been sold far in advance.

The event was unusual for several reasons.

The event was unusual for several reasons. The Opéra presents very few operatic world premieres, and even fewer of French operas. Messiaen himself, though doubtless a major presence in French music and in contemporary music (as the teacher of, among others, Boulez and Stockhausen), had never shown any inclination for the stage, and had to be resolutely cajoled by the then Opéra director, Rolf Liebermann, before finally agreeing in 1974 to undertake the commission. Even then, the betting among the Parisian cynics was that the opera would never be