Johanna

The modern opera version of the Saint Joan story starts with the shooting of a film: car crash and rescue operations. The young doctor becomes aware of a girl, who, being a drug-addict, looks for morphine in the hospital and gives herself a shot. She falls into a deep coma, and the doctor saves her at the last moment. Joan awakes as if newly born and can't remember her former life. The doctor takes her to himself in the hospital. The girl gives sexual pleasure to the male patients so they would not give up hope. The patients start to adore Joan as a saint, whereby they turn the whole staff of the hospital against her. The young doctor would protect her if the girl loved only him, but the girl is not willing to give in. He gives her a lethal dose of morphine, and she is burnt along with the hospital waste. Years later she becomes canonized a saint. (Mokép)