Le Domino Noir - Synopsis

Synopsis

Time: c. 1780

Place: Madrid

The action concerns a young novice nun, Angèle de Olivarès. Enjoying her last freedom before taking final vows, Angèle slips out of the Ursuline convent along with her companion Brigitte to attend a ball in honour of the Queen of Spain's birthday. To conceal her identity, she wears a black half-mask (the "domino" of the title). A year previously, at the same ball, Angèle had met a young man, Horace de Masserena. Horace has fallen in love with her and returns to the ball in the hope of seeing her again. Instead he meets the unknown woman in the black mask and dances with her. Thinking to help Horace, his friend Count Juliano, sets the clock back an hour causing Angèle to miss leaving at midnight, which would have allowed her to get back to the convent in time before the gates close. Angèle runs off and tries to take shelter for the night in a house she finds on the way. Unfortunately, it turns out to belong to Count Juliano who is holding a late-night party for his friends. Angèle persuades the housekeeper to disguise her as her niece from the country. She manages to fool everyone except, of course, Horace who recognises her from the ball a year ago. He does not tell anyone else but locks Angèle in a room where he hopes to keep her until she gives him an explanation. But Angèle is inadvertently freed by the housekeeper's lover, the drunken Gil Perez, who opens the door and runs off, having mistaken her for a demon in her mask and cloak. Angèle manages to slip undiscovered into the convent, where on the very same day she is to be installed as an abbess. Shortly before the ceremony, a letter from the queen frees her from her vows, which allows her to marry Horace and Ursule, her jealous rival for the office, to the chagrin of other nuns, is named the new abbess instead.