Méditation (Thaïs)

In the first scene of Act II, Athanaël, a Cenobite monk, confronts Thaïs, a beautiful and hedonistic courtesan and devotée of Venus, and attempts to persuade her to leave her life of luxury and pleasure and find salvation through God.

The climax is reached at a place marked poco piu appassionato (a little more passion) and is then followed by a short cadenza-like passage from the soloist and returns to the main theme.

Massenet made an arrangement of the Méditation for voice and keyboard in 1894 as an Ave Maria, which a contemporary critic Camille Bellaigue noted had even been introduced into marriage services.

Jazz bass saxophonist Adrian Rollini quoted the opening bars of the melody in a 1925 recording of 'Milenburg Joys' with the Varsity Eight, although he did play it in the key of D-flat major, a semitone lower than the original composition.

Premiered on 21 March 1971, the piece was first danced by Antoinette Sibley and Anthony Dowell of The Royal Ballet and at the Adelphi Theatre, London, as part of a gala performance.

The piece, created in only two rehearsals[4] is not related to the plot of the opera, but resembles a vision scene, with Sibley appearing as "a disembodied, weightless spirit",[5] and features costumes designed by Dowell.