FAUST
Opéra en 5 actes
Composer: Charles Gounod (1818–1893)
Libretto : Jules Barbier & Michael Carré, after Goethe’s Faust, part 1 (1808)
First performed : Théâtre Lyrique (boulevard du Temple), Paris, 19 March 1859

SETTING: Germany, 16th century

PLOT: The philosopher Faust sells his soul to Méphistophèles in exchange for youth. Faust seduces and then abandons Marguerite, who gives birth to an illegitimate child. He then murders her brother, the soldier Valentin, who curses Marguerite with his dying breath. Marguerite goes mad and kills her child; Faust and Méphistophèles go to the prison to rescue her, but she rejects them. She dies and her soul rises up to heaven.

‘Faust’ was one of the most successful operas of the nineteenth century. Like Berlioz ('La damnation de Faust', 1846: youtube.com/watch?v=0-x-9WzLS7Q&list=PLoB7Fd8EvhHagG5GFHsyUz60HRHvdsPla) before him, Gounod read Faust as a young man, as a 20-year-old Prix de Rome student, and dreamt of composing music for it. (Goethe himself had wanted Mozart or Meyerbeer to set it to music.)

It was surprisingly unsuccessful when it was first performed; it was found too learned and not tuneful enough. The problem was that Gounod’s music was in a different style from French grand opéra to which audiences were used; it was an early opéra lyrique. Berlioz, however, admired the work, going so far as to use the word ‘masterpiece’. Reyer considered it ‘among the most beautiful works of the time; a work in which inspiration and beauties of the first order erase very light imperfections’.

The audience did not embrace ‘Faust’ until the revised version of 1862. From that time, Gounod was seen as France’s leading opera composer. Its 500th Parisian performance took place in 1887, its 1,500th in 1912 and its 2,000th in 1934.

Scène & Air des Bijoux:
‘Je voudrais bien savoir…’
Chanson du Roi de Thule: ‘Il était un Roi de Thulé…’
Air des Bijoux: ‘Un bouquet! …O Dieu! Que de bijoux!’

Marguerite sings a song about the King of Thule, but breaks off to think about the unknown young man who spoke to her at the Kermesse (Faust). She notices Siebel’s bouquet of flowers and – with incredulous surprise – the casket of jewels that Méphistophèles has left. She decks herself in the jewels, and admires herself in a mirror.

Marguerite (soprano): Victoria de Los Angeles

Conductor : André Cluytens
Orchestre du Théâtre National de l’Opéra
Paris, 1958

(Pictures by Hergé.)

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