How opera can give a voice to faith | Faith Matters

Apart from the summer festival, Glyndebourne has an all-year round programme of promoting music for schools in areas of deprivation. It also teaches people with dementia to communicate through music, and it consciously selects operas that will challenge its audiences in many ways.

One example of this a Glyndebourne performance of a modern opera called The Dialogue of the Carmelites, performed at the BBC Proms on August 7, freely available on Radio 3.

This tells the haunting story of Carmelite nuns who were guillotined in Paris in 1794 because they would not give up their Christian faith. It tells us that mob hatred cannot bear to be confronted by love and beauty.

The composer, Francis Poulenc, completed the opera in 1956. It’s thought that this story from the French Revolution was stirred in his imagination by the more recent experience of the Holocaust and the French resistance to Nazi occupation.

It’s also interesting that the opera re-awakened Poulenc’s faith as a Roman Catholic, even though he was openly gay. Perhaps he is suggesting that there is something in the human person that will reach for faith in God, no matter how irrational that seems.

The music isn’t everybody’s cup of tea! But its message stings the imagination as we recognise how easy it is to trample on religious freedom for political and economic reasons.

Just in this past week I’ve been reminded of this in the specific case of a Roman Catholic bishop in Central America who was put under house arrest last year, for denouncing the injustice of a repressive government and refusing to comply with an expulsion order.

Six months later, troops stormed his house and arrested him and his staff. They have been consigned to one of those prisons that is a living death sentence.

Opera gives a voice to faith like that.

Dates for your diary

• Chichester Cathedral presents its summer exhibition, Resilience in Clay, a collection of sculptural works from the artist Kate Viner, until Thursday, August 31, and supported by a programme of events including an Artist’s Tour and a portrait drawing workshop. There’s a children’s trail too. Entry free, donations welcomed.

Through developing this new body of work, celebrating human diversity and resilience, Kate Viner has sought to bring Chichester residents together to explore different cultural values, faiths, and build connections. The exhibition comprises seven sculptural portraits. Each of the subjects are connected by the fact that they are building a new life in Chichester, some having found refuge from persecution based on conflict and religious, social and or ethnic discrimination.

On Friday, August 11, 11am-1pm, there’s a Making Faces: Drop-In Family Workshop with Kate Viner for the whole family, where you can explore, play, and let your artistic genius shine. No prior experience needed, just bring your enthusiasm and curiosity. There's no need to book, simply turn-up!