Plot
Possibly inspired by Operation Shepherdess: The Mystery of Joan of Arc by André Guérin and Jack Palmer White, a revisionist history alleging that Joan of Arc escaped execution and later married a nobleman named Robert des Armoises, an idea rejected by historians, the notion of a legendary Joan who lived on in secret has persisted. Certainly inspired by the Vietnam War, the opera tells of the government of France and Pierre Cauchon, Archbishop of Beauvais releasing Joan of Arc and allowing a double, also believed to be a witch, to burn in her place. She is sent to live with a mute farmer, who falls in love with her, as he elucidates in songs performed in soliloquy toward the audience. Realizing that there is no end in sight to the Hundred Years' War, the first act ends with Joan seeking to rejoin the army, despite the fact that she is no longer hearing her voices.
In Act II, Joan learns that she has lost the respect of the army, who attempt to rape her. (The libretto in the concept album has her get raped about halfway through the act; this was changed when stagings went beyond a band performance to a full-fledged play.) She meets with some deserters who no longer understand the meaning of the war, and reject its former religious purposes, complaining that only their generals and the nobility can live above suffering. Alone and anonymous, Joan is eventually found by villagers who mistakenly decide she has put a hex on their cow, tie her to a tree and immolate her, thus ending her life almost as history would have it. Upon her death, Joan re-establishes contact with her three voices, St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret.
The play script is held in the North Carolina Collection at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and remains unpublished. It contains many scene changes, often depicting how ordinary people's lives affect the war, including Joan's brother, Charles, acting as a scribe for his mother, requesting the king to provide them Joan's soldier wages to live on, and chides her for some irate informalisms she wants to include.
Read more about this topic: The Survival Of St. Joan
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