This is a one-act church opera. Pretty simply plot: it's Medieval Times.™ There's a church orphanage where Martin and other kids live. One night, Martin's assigned to sleep in the kitchen to keep the rats away. A stranger appears, demanding to be hidden, because he's a heretic who worshipped in the wrong way and he's gonna be executed. After some debate, Martin agrees. The inquisitors show up. They demand that the heretic be given to them. Martin insists that he's not there. They threaten to torture him if he doesn't talk. BLARGH, he spontaneously dies. The end.
Seriously, foax, I'm on record as being a fan of Menotti, but this is just embarrassing. Just SUCH a mawkish story, lugubriously told. Did they actually threaten to torture random kids suspected of hiding heretics? Conceivably, but it seems more likely that this is just playing into our prejudices, and what is even the message here? "It's good to help persecuted people?" "It's bad to torture children?" Hard-hitting stuff, for sure. There's definitely some unintentional comedy, especially with him dying for no reason, but I don't think it justifies this thing's existence. That this is rarely performed is not much of a surprise.
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