When nine years of age he was made a monastic novice.

This judgement was given with a lift of the head and a glint of the eye that bespoke rather the apprentice to arms than the monastic novice.

Now that we have seen operas about everyone from Gandhi to Charles Manson, set in most countries of the world and on a few fictional planets, a work about two Tibetan monastic novices might seem almost commonplace.

The opera, which has a good, concise libretto by Gary Glickman, is based on Alexandra David-Neel's novella "The Power of Nothingness," and traces the fortunes of Munpa and Lobsang, two monastic novices.

The news agency Agence France Presses quoted an unnamed government official who confirmed what foreign diplomats have suspected for days - that some 1700 people have been held at the Government Technology Institute campus, including some 200 women and one monastic novice who is 10 years old.