Same scene, from a different opera house (this time the clip includes the ominous march theme that leads into the scene): youtube.com/watch?v=mkOK3a…
If you watch both, you'll sense there's something betw the last two: Sr. Constance, and the very last, Sr. Blanche. There is. Blanche used to think Constance was a flibbertigibbet, which she kinda sorta is, BUT, it was Constance who figured out that a very holy person can...
..."die someone else's death," and that this is why the holy Old Prioress (Regine Crespin in the Met performance) had such an agonized death: bc of it, someone else, who wd otherwise be too afraid, will face death bravely. This turns out to be Blanche.
Btw Regine Crespin was the New Prioress, Mme. Lidoine, in this opera's world premiere at La Scala. (That part is taken, and brilliantly acted, by Jessye Norman in the Met clip.)
More. Crespin, though her English was heavily accented, preferred doing the Old Prioress in English. (The Met used to alternate languages for this opera.) Bc in her death throes the Old Prioress imagines there is a hot wax mask on her face, and she wants to tear it off...
..."with my nails." Crespin insisted that "nails" was a better sound her than the too-mellifluous French "ongles." I saw her at least once in an Engl-lang performance, and I'll never forget her delivery of a great Bernanos line: ...
which came out as: “Wot Godd weel test een you eez not yeur strenss but yeur WIKnesss.” (Orig. «Ce qu’il veut éprouver en vous, n’est pas votre force, mais votre faiblesse.»)
