For a man who lived almost 800 years ago, Saint Francis of Assisi still has a pervasive influence on the Western world, more pervasive perhaps than any religious figure except Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Many people know him only through pious legends that have him chatting with gentle forest creatures and rebuking wild wolves, or as the ceramic presence that adorns countless backyard birdbaths. But a deeper reason for Francis’s longevity may be the fact that his guileless, open approach to the world and its problems can strike a responsive chord in the people of any era.
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Jabusch is quick to point out that the events in the opera are based on historical facts about Francis and his world–a great many of which are known–not on the fanciful, talk-to-the-animals myths that have grown up around the saint. The 13th century, he notes, was beset with wars, religious fanaticism, commercial greed, and a widespread fear of incurable diseases–in short, a century not unlike our own. To each of these challenges Francis brought his own brand of honesty and compassion–and confounded his contemporaries.
Saint Francis was also unquestionably a pioneer ecologist in an era that thought little of sanitation or the preservation of natural resources, says Jabusch. His persistent message that creation–even in its most insignificant parts–is good and valuable came as a kind of thunderclap to the people of his time. According to a contemporary biographer, so did Francis’s attitude toward leprosy, the AIDS of the 13th century. As an irresponsible free-living young man, he had been frightened and disgusted by the disease. Then one day he was moved to publicly embrace a leper, a man he had avoided on the street many times. That embrace, says Jabusch, marked Francis’s transformation into a charismatic figure, even as it led to fierce conflict with his father, a wealthy merchant who expected his son to follow in his footsteps.
The cost of this production, too, is steep. Some backing has come from Chicago-area businesses and banks. There have been “nibbles” of interest from professional companies for future productions, says Jabusch, but as yet “the pieces have not come together.” Staging opera, he readily acknowledges, requires more than good music, great lyrics, and a compelling story.
