the spring, and reports that many more healings take place during the Blessing of the Eucharist ceremony which is held daily at the grotto. Werfel's description of the veiled lupus sufferers is very similar to that of Zola's description of Elise Rouquet, whose nose and mouth are being eaten away by lupus, on pages 13-14 of Lourdes. Rouquet is also the Zola character who bathes her face in water from the Lourdes spring; one sore on her face improves, but the doctors are unable to decide, throughout the book, whether she actually had lupus or some other illness that responds well to washing or if the partial cure is psychosomatic. No such indecision plagues Dr. Dozous or his fellow physicians; in Chapter 46 of The Song of Bernadette, "The Hell of the Flesh," he implausibly informs the fictional Lafite that one of the lupus patients bathed her face in water from the spring and that she "didn't realize at first that she had a nose and mouth again." Copyright The Song of Bernadette has been in the public domain in the European Union since 1 January 2016. Adaptations A 1943 film version, produced by 20th-Century Fox and directed by Henry King, was a major success and won four Academy Awards. One Oscar went to Jennifer Jones, marking her emergence as a Hollywood star. The Song of Bernadette is an upcoming musical adaption of Werfel's novel by Frank Wildhorn, Rinne Groff, and Robin Lerner. The new musical is scheduled to premiere at the Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 19, 2023. The first industry reading of the show took place on March 14-15, 2019. In September 2022, a workshop was held in Manhattan. References External links Bernadette of Lourdes Author John Martin's [who abridged Franz Werfel's classic The Song of Bernadette] website The Song of Bernadette on the Google Books. The Song of Bernadette on the Internet Archive. 1941 American novels American novels adapted into films Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic novels Fiction set in 1858 Novels set in the 1850s Novels by Franz Werfel