About the work
A miracle play set to music, in three acts, by Jules Massenet after Anatole France's story 'Le jongleur de Notre-Dame' (1892), with a libretto by Maurice Léna. It premiered on 18 February 1902 at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
Plot
The wandering juggler Jean enters a monastery but finds he has no gift for the monks' singing or prayer. In despair at having nothing else to offer the Virgin, he secretly juggles before her statue at night. When the monks discover him and are about to charge him with blasphemy, the statue comes to life and blesses Jean, who dies in a state of grace.
Cultural significance
Massenet deliberately scored the work for male voices alone — the only female presence is the silent statue of the Virgin — to counter his reputation as a composer who always needed a prima donna as muse. Ironically, the soprano Mary Garden went on to make the trouser role of Jean popular in the United States into the 1930s. By 1950 the Opéra-Comique had given the work more than 350 times.