We are in Lourdes, 1858, and a young girl named Bernadette, age 14 or 15 (she's not entirely sure), sits before the inspector of Lourdes, defending her claim to have seen aquero (that thing).
This is the opening scene of director Serge Denoncourt and producers Kelsey Grammar and Pierre Ferragu’s production, Bernadette, the Musical, now playing in Chicago. The musical has enjoyed successful runs in both France and Italy, and has arrived in the US, premiering at the Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture.
The story of Bernadette Soubirous needs little introduction for many Catholics. The Virgin Mary appeared 18 times to the young Bernadette; she asked her to dig in the ground, causing a spring to flow, requested that a church be built, and revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception. This story has inspired countless books, films, and pilgrimages in honor of Our Lady’s apparition.
So why make it into a musical?
This was the question I carried with me driving into the Atheneum for the 7:30 p.m. showing. I knew the answer almost immediately after the first scene.
This musical does not present itself as a documentary, nor as a reverent retelling of Bernadette’s life and legacy. Instead, we watch Bernadette, a young girl played with breathtaking sincerity by Eyma, get scrutinized and interrogated by not just inspectors, but by her own family and friends. We do not merely hear her speak or protest; we hear her sing, pouring out ballads, crying aloud again and again: “Why me? I’m nobody!”
The emotional weight of hearing these words not simply spoken but wept in song, amid crowds of spectators or in fields of wheatgrass, transforms Bernadette’s narrative from a mere testimony of fact into something much greater: an example of unwavering faith and determination into the soul of a young girl. Her raw trust and simplicity are what give this production its aching life and heartfelt messages through music.
This sense of inadequacy is further deepened by Bernadette’s childlike innocence and faith. The simple opening scene and songs of aquero, translating to “that thing” or “that,” carry a quiet, profound effect. Bernadette speaks only of what she knows. She cannot name what she has seen, and so she calls it, humbly, a thing. She insists with unflinching calmness: “I fear nothing because I have always told the truth.” Much of the lyrics are drawn from her original interrogation transcripts, lending the saint’s own words a luminous, musical life.
The musical score works as a kind of illumination, casting the saint’s perspective and voice into light, even as the world around her presses in like darkness. The duets shared between Bernadette and her parents are perhaps the most quietly devastating moments of the production, weaving together trust and suffering into something that can only be called an act of human love. We witness firsthand the ostracization visited upon the Soubirious family as felt, in full, the weight it places upon Bernadette’s young shoulders.
All of this pales, however, when Bernadette reveals the aquero’s identity as the Immaculate Conception, a concept Bernadette neither has heard of nor understands. A turning point as decisive in the musical as it is in history, this revelation is handled with extraordinary delicacy and reverence. The priest, portrayed beautifully by Thomas James, and Bernadette, enters into a musical dialogue of grace, culminating in a heart-stirring, electrifying performance of “Ave Maria.” Everything that follows is transfigured — this is the foundation, the transformation, of both our hearts and the play.
This of course, is no accident. This is the heart of the story, the point of everything that came before it.
And to the modern young woman, I found in Bernadette’s story a deep solace. In many ways, we are invited to follow in her example, to find ourselves, as she did crying out, “Why me?” as we strive to follow Christ in our work, education, our homes, and even in the noise of social media. Within the noise of our modern world, we can still hear the graceful music, the songs of Bernadette and her family, to cry and surrender — and that is the whole point.
