Saint François d’Assise

By the breadth of its vision of the world and the intensity of the sensory experience it provides - not to mention the artistic daring of its creator - Olivier Messiaen's opera Saint François d'Assise occupies a place in the second half of the 20th century comparable to that of Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde in the 19th century. It too is a major work in the history of music, indeed a key work of its time. These two stage works are also linked by the theme of love. In both cases, it is an immeasurable love that culminates in death, although in Wagner's case it is the love between a man and a woman, while in Messiaen's it is the love of a man for Jesus Christ.