Charles Gounod
Operas Sapho (1851, rev. 1884) La nonne sanglante (1854) Le médecin malgré lui (1858) Faust (1859, revised 1869) Philémon et Baucis (1860, revised 1876) La colombe (1860, revised 1866) La reine de Saba (1862) Mireille (1864) Roméo et Juliette (1867) Cinq-Mars (1877) Maître Pierre (incomplete, 1877-8) Polyeucte (1878) Le tribut de Zamora (1881)
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Faust is a grand opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859.

Performance history[link]

Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite (1860)

Faust was rejected by the Paris Opera, on the grounds that it was not sufficiently "showy", and its appearance at the Théatre-Lyrique was delayed for a year because Adolphe d'Ennery's drama Faust was playing at the Porte St. Martin. The manager Léon Carvalho (who cast his wife Marie Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite) insisted on various changes during production, including cutting several numbers.

Faust was not initially well-received. The publisher Antoine Choudens, who purchased the copyright for 10,000 francs, took the work (with added recitatives replacing the original spoken dialogue) on tour through Germany, Belgium, Italy and England, with Marie Miolan-Carvalho repeating her role.

It was revived in Paris in 1862, and was a hit. A ballet had to be inserted before the work could be played at the Opéra in 1869: it became the most frequently performed opera at that house and a staple of the international repertory, which it remained for decades, being translated into at least 25 languages.

Its popularity and critical reputation have declined somewhat since around 1950. A full production, with its large chorus and elaborate sets and costumes, is an expensive undertaking, particularly if the act 5 ballet is included. However, it appears as number 35 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.^[1]

It was Faust with which the Metropolitan Opera in New York City opened for the first time on 22 October 1883. It is the eighth most frequently performed opera there, with over 730 performances up until 2008. It was not until the period between 1965 and 1977 that the full version was performed (and then with some minor cuts), and all performances in that production included the Walpurgisnacht and the ballet.^[2]

Roles[link]

The vision of Marguerite as staged at Covent Garden in 1864 with Jean-Baptiste Faure as Méphistophélès and Giovanni Mario as Faust

Synopsis[link]

Place: Germany

Time: 16th century

Act 1[link]

Faust's cabinet

	Faust: "O merveille! ... A moi les plaisirs" Méphistophélès (Marcel Journet) gives Faust (Enrico Caruso) a glimpse of Marguerite, and he signs the contract with the Devil, and heads out with him to experience the world, in this 1910 recording of the act 1 finale. Le veau d'or Méphistophélès, act 2, performed by Feodor Chaliapin
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Faust, an aging scholar, determines that his studies have come to nothing and have only caused him to miss out on life and love (Rien! En vain j'interroge). He attempts to kill himself (twice) with poison but stops each time when he hears a choir. He curses science and faith, and asks for infernal guidance. Méphistophélès appears (duet: Me voici) and, with a tempting image of Marguerite at her spinning wheel, persuades Faust to buy Méphistophélès's services on earth in exchange for Faust's in Hell. Faust's goblet of poison is magically transformed into an elixir of youth, making the aged doctor a handsome young gentleman; the strange companions then set out into the world.

Act 2[link]

At the city gates

A chorus of students, soldiers and villagers sing a drinking song (Vin ou Bière). Valentin, leaving for war with his friend Wagner, entrusts the care of his sister Marguerite to his youthful friend Siébel (O sainte médaille ... Avant de quitter ces lieux). Méphistophélès appears, provides the crowd with wine, and sings a rousing, irreverent song about the Golden Calf (Le veau d'or). Méphistophélès maligns Marguerite, and Valentin tries to strike him with his sword, which shatters in the air. Valentin and friends use the cross-shaped hilts of their swords to fend off what they now know is an infernal power (chorus: De l'enfer). Méphistophélès is joined by Faust and the villagers in a waltz (Ainsi que la brise légère). Marguerite appears and Faust declares his admiration, but she refuses Faust's arm out of modesty.

Act 3[link]

Marguerite's garden in the original production, set design by Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry

Marguerite's garden

The lovesick boy Siébel leaves a bouquet for Marguerite (Faites-lui mes aveux). Faust sends Méphistophélès in search of a gift for Marguerite and sings a cavatina (Salut, demeure chaste et pure) idealizing Marguerite as a pure child of nature. Méphistophélès brings in a decorated box containing exquisite jewelry and a hand mirror and leaves it on Marguerite's doorstep, next to Siébel's flowers. Marguerite enters, pondering her encounter with Faust at the city gates, and sings a melancholy ballad about the King of Thulé (Il était un roi de Thulé). Marthe, Marguerite's neighbour, notices the jewellery and says it must be from an admirer. Marguerite tries on the jewels and is captivated by how they enhance her beauty, as she sings in the famous aria, the Jewel Song (Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir). Méphistophélès and Faust join the women in the garden and romance them. Marguerite allows Faust to kiss her (Laisse-moi, laisse-moi contempler ton visage), but then asks him to go away. She sings at her window for his quick return, and Faust, listening, returns to her. Under the watchful eye and malevolent laughter of Méphistophélès, it is clear that Faust's seduction of Marguerite will be successful.

Act 4[link]

	Vous qui faites l'endormie Méphistophélès, Act 4, performed by Feodor Chaliapin
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Marguerite's room / A public square outside her house / A cathedral

[Note: The scenes of acts 4 and 5 are sometimes given in a different order and portions are sometimes shortened or cut in performance.]^[3]

Marguerite prays in the cathedral, set design by Cambon

Feodor Chaliapin as Méphistophélès, 1915

After being impregnated and abandoned by Faust, Marguerite has given birth and is a social outcast. She sings an aria at her spinning wheel (Il ne revient pas). Siébel stands by her. The scene shifts to the square outside Marguerite's house. Valentin's company returns from the war to a military march (Deposons les armes and Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux, the well-known "soldiers' chorus"). Siébel asks Valentin to forgive Marguerite. Valentin rushes to her cottage. While he is inside Faust and Méphistophélès appear, and Méphistophélès, thinking that only Marguerite is there, sings a mocking burlesque of a lover's serenade under Marguerite's window (Vous qui faites l'endormie). Valentin comes out of the cottage, now knowing that Faust has debauched his sister. The three men fight, Méphistophélès blocking Valentin's sword, allowing Faust to make the fatal thrust. With his dying breath Valentin blames Marguerite for his death and condemns her to Hell before the assembled townspeople (Ecoute-moi bien Marguerite). Marguerite goes to the church and tries to pray there but is stopped, first by Méphistophélès and then by a choir of devils. She finishes her prayer but faints when she is cursed again by Méphistophélès.

Act 5[link]

The Harz mountains on Walpurgis Night / A cavern / The interior of a prison

Méphistophélès and Faust are surrounded by witches (Un, deux et trois). Faust is transported to a cave of queens and courtesans, and Méphistophélès promises to provide Faust with the love of the greatest and most beautiful women in history. An orgiastic ballet suggests the revelry that continues throughout the night. As dawn approaches, Faust sees a vision of Marguerite and calls for her. Méphistophélès helps Faust enter the prison where Marguerite is being held for killing her child. They sing a love duet (Oui, c'est toi que j'aime). Méphistophélès states that only a mortal hand can deliver Marguerite from her fate, and Faust offers to rescue her from the hangman, but she prefers to trust her fate to God and His angels (Anges purs, anges radieux). At the end she asks why Faust's hands are covered in blood, pushes him away, and falls down motionless. Méphistophélès curses, as a voice on high sings "Sauvée!" ("Saved!"). The bells of Easter sound and a chorus of angels sings "Christ est ressuscité!" ('"Christ is risen!"). The walls of the prison open, and Marguerite's soul rises to heaven. In despair Faust follows it with his eyes; he falls to his knees and prays. Méphistophélès is turned away by the shining sword of the archangel.^[4]

In other art forms[link]

Parts of the opera have seeped into popular culture in Europe over more than a century. It was so popular in the United States that in New York the opera season began with a performance of it every year for several decades in the late nineteenth century, a fact to which Edith Wharton makes great reference in her novel The Age of Innocence. The Argentinian author Estanislao del Campo wrote a satirical poem, Fausto (1866), which describes a gaucho's impressions during the performance of Gounod's opera.

A performance of the opera is part of the story of Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera and features in some film adaptations including the 1925 version. Irene Dunne performs the "Jewel Song" in the film Stingaree (1934) and Jeanette MacDonald performs several scenes from the opera in San Francisco (1936), complete with costumes, sets and orchestra.

There are very short extracts from the words to the "Jewel Song" in several stories in The Adventures of Tintin. In this series of comic strips, Tintin and his sidekick, Captain Haddock, often encounter a bombastic opera singer called Bianca Castafiore, of a more than passing resemblance to a later (1882) eminent Marguerite, Emma Calvé. Her trademark is the jewel song, which she always sings at high volume, never saying more than Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir or a few words more from other lines. The entire Tintin story The Castafiore Emerald (original title: La Castafiore's Jewels) derives from this running gag.

Although the Walpurgisnacht ballet sequence from act 5 is often omitted from staged opera performances, it is frequently performed separately as part of a ballet program, e.g. George Balanchine's Walpurgisnacht Ballet.

Siébel's aria, "Faites-lui mes aveux" from act 3 of the opera is quoted twice ("Tell her, oh flower") by Dorn in act 2 of Chekhov's play, The Seagull. The same song is used as the basis for Ravel's piano piece À la manière de Chabrier, in which the song by Gounod is rendered in the style of a composer much admired by Ravel.

Recordings[link]

References[link]

Notes

Sources

• Barbier, Jules; Carré, Michel (1859). Faust (libretto). Paris: Michel Lévy Frères. View at Google Books.
• Holden, Amanda, (Ed.) (2001). The New Penguin Opera Guide. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-051475-9 (paperback).
• Huebner, Steven (1992). "Faust (ii)" in Sadie 1992, vol. 2, pp. 131–135.
• Huebner, Steven (2001). "Charles Gounod" in Holden 2001, pp. 334–340.
• Sadie, Stanley, editor (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (4 volumes). London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-56159-228-9.
• Walsh, T. J. (1981). Second Empire Opera: The Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, 1851–1870. London: John Calder. ISBN 978-0-7145-3659-0.
• Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992). The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-869164-8.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Faust (opera)

• Synopsis (in German, English, French, Italian), libretto (in German, English, French)
• San Diego OperaTalk! with Nick Reveles: Gounod's Faust
• Faust: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• "Mon coeur est penetre d'epouvante" (My heart is overcome with terror), from act 5. Enrico Caruso with Geraldine Farrar. Recorded in 1910. Victor catalog #89033. Restoration by Bob Varney; archive.com. Retrieved 30 April 2010.

Faust, etching by Rembrandt (c. 1650)

Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works.

The meaning of the word and name has been reinterpreted through the ages. Faust, and the adjective faustian, are often used to describe an arrangement in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success: the proverbial "deal with the devil".^[1]

The Faust of early books—as well as the ballads, dramas, movies and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human to divine knowledge; "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of Theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of Medicine".^[1]

Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust and Mephistopheles to figures of vulgar fun. The story was popularised in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. In Goethe's reworking of the story 200 years later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual who yearns for "more than earthly meat and drink".

Summary of the story[link]

Despite his scholarly eminence, Faust is bored and disappointed. He decides to call on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devil's representative, Mephistopheles, appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a term of years, but at the end of the term, the devil will claim Faust's soul and Faust will be eternally damned. The term usually stipulated in the early tales is 24 years.

During the term of the bargain, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways. In many versions of the story, particularly Goethe's drama, Mephistopheles helps him to seduce a beautiful and innocent girl, usually named Gretchen, whose life is ultimately destroyed. However, Gretchen's innocence saves her in the end, and she enters Heaven. In Goethe's rendition, Faust is saved by God's grace via his constant striving—in combination with Gretchen's pleadings with God in the form of the Eternal Feminine. However, in the early tales, Faust is irrevocably corrupted and believes his sins cannot be forgiven; when the term ends, the devil carries him off to Hell.

Sources of the legend[link]

The first printed source on the legend of Faust is a little chapbook bearing the title Historia von D. Johann Fausten, published in 1587. The book was re-edited and borrowed from throughout the 16th century. Other "Faustbooks" of that era include:

• Das Wagnerbuch (1593)
• Das Widmann'sche Faustbuch (1599)
• Dr. Fausts großer und gewaltiger Höllenzwang (Frankfurt 1609)
• Dr. Johannes Faust, Magia naturalis et innaturalis (Passau 1612)
• Das Pfitzer'sche Faustbuch (1674)
• Dr. Fausts großer und gewaltiger Meergeist (Amsterdam 1692)
• Das Wagnerbuch (1714)
• Faustbuch des Christlich Meynenden (1725)

The 1725 Faustbook was widely circulated, and also read by the young Goethe.

The origin of Faust's name and persona remains unclear; though it is widely assumed to be based on the figure of Dr. Johann Georg Faust (c.1480–1540), a magician and alchemist probably from Knittlingen, Württemberg, who obtained a degree in divinity from Heidelberg University in 1509. Scholars such as Frank Baron^[2] and Leo Ruickbie^[3] contest many of these previous assumptions.

Some sources also connect the legendary Faust with Johann Fust (c. 1400–1466), Johann Gutenberg's business partner,^[4] or suggest that Fust is one of the multiple origins to the Faust story.^[5]

The character in Polish folklore named Pan Twardowski presents similarities with Faust, and this legend seems to have originated at roughly the same time. It is unclear whether the two tales have a common origin or influenced each other. Pan Twardowski may be based on a 16th-century German emigrant to the then-capital of Poland, Kraków, or possibly John Dee or Edward Kelley. According to the theologian Philip Melanchthon, the historical Johann Faust had studied in Kraków, as well.

Related tales about a pact between man and the devil include the legend of Theophilus of Adana, the 5th-century bishop; and the plays Mary of Nijmegen (Dutch, early 15th century, attributed to Anna Bijns) and Cenodoxus (German, early 17th century, by Jacob Bidermann).

The notes to one edition of Goethe's Faust assert that the alchemists Agrippa and Paracelsus were combined into the protagonist.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Marlowe's Doctor Faustus

The early Faust chapbook, while in circulation in northern Germany, found its way to England, where in 1592 an English translation was published, The Historie of the Damnable Life, and Deserved Death of Doctor Iohn Faustus credited to a certain "P. F., Gent[leman]". Christopher Marlowe used this work as the basis for his more ambitious play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (published c. 1604). Marlowe also borrowed from John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, on the exchanges between Pope Adrian VI and a rival pope. Another possible inspiration of Marlowe's version is John Dee (1527–1609), who practiced forms of alchemy and science and developed Enochian magic.

[edit] Goethe's Faust

Illustration by Harry Clarke for Goethe's Faust

Another important version of the legend is the play Faust, published in 1808 by the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Goethe's Faust complicates the simple Christian moral of the original legend. A hybrid between a play and an extended poem, Goethe's two-part "closet drama" is epic in scope. It gathers together references from Christian, medieval, Roman, eastern and Hellenic poetry, philosophy and literature.

The composition and refinement of Goethe's own version of the legend occupied him for over 60 years (though not continuously). The final version, published after his death, is recognized as a great work of German literature.

The story concerns the fate of Faust in his quest for the true essence of life ("was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält"). Frustrated with learning and the limits to his knowledge, power, and enjoyment of life, he attracts the attention of the devil (represented by Mephistopheles), who agrees to serve Faust until the moment he attains to the zenith of human happiness that he cries out to that moment to "stay, thou art so beautiful!" (Faust, I, l.1700) — at which point Mephistopheles may take his soul. Faust is pleased with the deal, as he believes this happy zenith will never come.

In the first part, Mephistopheles leads Faust through experiences that culminate in a lustful relationship with Gretchen, an innocent young woman. Gretchen and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles' deceptions and Faust's desires. Part one of the story ends in tragedy for Faust, as Gretchen is saved but Faust is left to grieve in shame.

The second part begins with the spirits of the earth forgiving Faust (and the rest of mankind) and progresses into allegorical poetry. Faust and his devil pass through and manipulate the world of politics and the world of the classical gods, and meet with Helen of Troy (the personification of beauty). Finally, having succeeded in taming the very forces of war and nature, Faust experiences a singular moment of happiness.

Mephistopheles tries to seize Faust's soul when he dies after this moment of happiness, but is frustrated and enraged when angels intervene due to God's grace. Though this grace is truly 'gratuitous' and does not condone Faust's frequent errors perpetrated with Mephistopheles, the angels state that this grace can only occur because of Faust's unending striving and due to the intercession of the forgiving Gretchen. The final scene has Faust's soul carried to heaven in the presence of God as the "Holy Virgin, Mother, Queen, Goddess...The Eternal Feminine". The Goddess is thus victorious over Mephistopheles, who had insisted at Faust's death that he would be consigned to "The Eternal Empty".

Murnau's "Faust"[link]

F.W. Murnau, director of the classic Nosferatu, directed a silent version of Faust that premiered in 1926. Murnau's film featured special effects that were remarkable for the time and many of these shots are still impressive today. In one, Mephisto towers over a town, dark wings spread wide, as a fog rolls in bringing the plague. In another, Faust rides with Mephisto through the sky, as the camera seems to swoop across a landscape that includes snowy mountains, cliffs and waterfalls.^[6]

In this version of the story, Faust is an elderly scholar and alchemist who is frustrated at his inability to help the plague-stricken population. He summons Mephisto, who overcomes Faust's reluctance to sign a pact by telling him he can try it for one day with no obligation. At the end of that day, having been restored to youth and helped by Mephisto to steal a beautiful woman from her wedding feast, Faust is sufficiently tempted that he agrees to extend the pact for eternity. Eventually he becomes bored with the pursuit of pleasure and returns home, where he falls in love with the beautiful and innocent Gretchen. His corruption (in the form of Mephisto) ultimately ruins both their lives, though there is still a chance for redemption in the end.^[7]

Similarities to Goethe's Faust include the classic tale of a man who sold his soul to the devil, the same Mephisto wagering with an angel to corrupt the soul of Faust, the plague sent by Mephisto on Faust's small town, and the familiar cliffhanger - Faust unable to find a cure and therefore turning to Mephisto, renouncing God, the angel and science alike.

Influence[link]

Goethe's Faust was the basis for three major operas:

• Faust by Charles Gounod
• Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito
• Doktor Faust by Ferruccio Busoni

There is also an operatic version by the British composer Havergal Brian.

It has inspired major musical works in other forms, such as the "dramatic legend" The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust, the second part of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, Franz Liszt's Faust Symphony and Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony.

Oswald Spengler in his book The Decline of the West (1918) presented Western civilization as 'Faustian', striving to attain the infinite, in contrast with antiquity which he took to be 'Apollonian'.

The story of Faust is also woven into Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov's best-known novel, The Master and Margarita with Margarita being modeled on Gretchen and the Master on Faust. Other characters in the novel include Woland (whose description recalls Mephistopheles) and Mikhail Alexandrovitch Berlioz (the head of Massolit), whose name obviously refers to the composer of The Damnation of Faust mentioned above.

Damn Yankees is a musical comedy with a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop and music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. The story is a modern retelling of the Faust legend set during the 1950s in Washington, D.C., during a time when the New York Yankees dominated Major League Baseball. The musical is based on Wallop's novel The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.

It also inspired French painter Ary Scheffer : Faust and Marguerite, oils on canvas, ca. 1831, Musée de la Vie romantique, Paris

The anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) were also shown to have several parallels with the concepts from Faust.

In 2006, the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps's program for the summer was entitled Faust and was loosely based on the legend.

Translations into English[link]

In September 2006, Oxford University Press published an English, blank-verse translation of Goethe's work entitled Faustus, From the German of Goethe, now widely believed to be the production of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The translation, which was published anonymously in 1821, was previously attributed to George Soane. Despite this evidence, the status of the translation as the work of Coleridge is still disputed by some Coleridge authorities.^[8]

[edit] Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus

Thomas Mann's 1947 Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde adapts the Faust legend to a 20th-century context, documenting the life of fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn as analog and embodiment of the early 20th-century history of Germany and of Europe. The talented Leverkühn, after contracting venereal disease from a brothel visit, forms a pact with a Mephistophelean character to grant him 24 years of brilliance and success as a composer. He produces works of increasing beauty to universal acclaim, even while physical illness begins to corrupt his body. In 1930, when presenting his final masterwork (The Lamentation of Dr Faust), he confesses the pact he had made: madness and syphilis now overcome him, and he suffers a slow and total collapse until his death in 1940. Leverkühn's spiritual, mental, and physical collapse and degradation are mapped on to the period in which Nazism rose in Germany, and Leverkühn's fate is shown as that of the soul of Germany.

See also[link]

• Cross Road Blues
• Deal with the devil
• Eric, parody novel by popular author Terry Pratchett
• Jonathan Moulton, the "Yankee Faust"
• "Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris", a Latin phrase from Marlowe's play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
• Staufen, Germany, a town in the extreme southwest of Germany, claims to be where Faust died (ca. 1540); depictions appear on buildings, etc. The only historical source for this tradition is a passage in the Chronik der Grafen von Zimmern, which was written around 1565, 25 years after Faust's presumed death. These chronicles are generally considered reliable, and in the 16th century there were still family ties between the lords of Staufen and the counts of Zimmern in nearby Donaueschingen.^[9]
• Works based on Faust

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Faust

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Faust

• Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Edited and with an introduction by Sylvan Barnet (1969, Signet Classics)
• J. Scheible, Das Kloster (1840s).

External links[link]

• Faust on In Our Time at the BBC. (listen now)
• Faust at the Open Directory Project
• Faust Study Guide
• The Faust Tradition from Marlowe to Mann, California State University, Chico
• Pacts with the Devil: Faust and Precursors
• E-texts:
• Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at Project Gutenberg
• Tragical History of Dr. Faustus at Project Gutenberg (Quarto of 1604)
• Tragical History of Dr. Faustus at Project Gutenberg (Quarto of 1616)
  • At Projekt Gutenberg-DE:
    • Goethe's Faust, part 1
    • Goethe's Faust, part 2
    • Heine's Der Doktor Faust
  • Faust full text in German and English side-by-side
  • Marlowe's Dr. Faustus
• Jan Svankmajer's Faust
• The Pre-Death Thoughts of Faust by Nikolai Berdyaev
• A wiki page about Faust. Includes scene by scene commentary.
• Did Coleridge translate Goethe's Faust? An article by Kelly Grovier in the Times Literary Supplement
• For a free public domain copy of the work by Goethe from Project Gutenberg

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa ɡuno]; 17 June 1818 – 17 October^[1][2] or 18 October^[3][4] 1893) was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.

Biography[link]

Charles Gounod in 1859, the year of the premiere of Faust

Gounod was born in Paris, the son of a pianist mother and an artist father. His mother was his first piano teacher. Under her tutelage, Gounod first showed his musical talents. He entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Fromental Halévy and Pierre Zimmermann (he later married Zimmermann's daughter). In 1839, he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand. He was following his father; François-Louis Gounod (d. 1823) had won the second Prix de Rome in painting in 1783.^[4] During his stay of four years in Italy, Gounod studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century; these he never ceased to cherish. Around 1846-47 he gave serious consideration to joining the priesthood, but he changed his mind before actually taking holy orders, and went back to composition.^[5] During that period, he was attached to the Church of Foreign Missions in Paris.

In 1854, Gounod completed a Messe Solennelle, also known as the Saint Cecilia Mass. This work was first performed, in its entirety, for the church of Saint Eustache in Paris on Saint Cecilia's Day, November 22, 1855; from this rendition dates Gounod's fame as a noteworthy composer.

Gounod late in his career.

During 1855 Gounod wrote two symphonies. His Symphony No. 1 in D major was the inspiration for the Symphony in C, composed later that year by Georges Bizet, who was then Gounod's 17-year-old student. In the CD era a few recordings of these pieces have emerged: by Michel Plasson conducting the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, and by Sir Neville Marriner with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Fanny Mendelssohn, sister of Felix Mendelssohn, introduced the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach to Gounod, who came to revere Bach. For him, The Well-Tempered Clavier was "the law to pianoforte study...the unquestioned textbook of musical composition". It inspired Gounod to devise an improvisation of a melody over the C major Prelude (BWV 846) from the collection's first book. To this melody, in 1859 (after the deaths of both Mendelssohn siblings), Gounod fitted the words of the Ave Maria, resulting in a setting that became world-famous.^[6]

Gounod wrote his first opera, Sapho, in 1851, at the urging of a friend of his, the singer Pauline Viardot; it was a commercial failure. He had no great theatrical success until Faust (1859), derived from Goethe. This remains the composition for which he is best known; and although it took a while to achieve popularity, it became one of the most frequently staged operas of all time, with no fewer than 2,000 performances of the work having taken place by 1975 at the Paris Opéra alone, not counting other theatres.^[7] The romantic and melodious Roméo et Juliette (based on the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet), premiered in 1867, is revived now and then but has never come close to matching Faust's popular following. Mireille, first performed in 1864, has been admired by connoisseurs rather than by the general public. The other Gounod operas have fallen into oblivion.

Caricature from Punch, 1882

From 1870 to 1874 Gounod lived in England. In 17 Morden Road, Blackheath. A blue plaque has been put up on the house to show where he lived.^[8] He became the first conductor of what is now the Royal Choral Society. Much of his music from this time is vocal. He became entangled with the amateur English singer Georgina Weldon,^[9] a relationship (platonic, it seems) which ended in great acrimony and embittered litigation.^[10] Gounod had lodged with Weldon and her husband in London's Tavistock House.

Later in his life, Gounod returned to his early religious impulses, writing much sacred music. His Pontifical Anthem (Marche Pontificale, 1869) eventually (1949) became the official national anthem of Vatican City. He expressed a desire to compose his Messe à la mémoire de Jeanne d'Arc (1887) while kneeling on the stone on which Joan of Arc knelt at the coronation of Charles VII of France.^[4] A devout Catholic, he had on his piano a music-rack in which was carved an image of the face of Jesus.

He was made a Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur in July 1888.^[4] In 1893, shortly after he had put the finishing touches to a requiem written for his grandson, he died of a stroke in Saint-Cloud, France.

One of Gounod's short pieces for piano, "Funeral March of a Marionette", received a new and unexpected lease of life from 1955 when it was first used as the theme for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The March was one of the eight records that Alfred Hitchcock selected to take to his desert island when he appeared on the BBC radio program Desert Island Disks in 1959.^[11] The March had earlier been used to produce equally suspenseful moments in F. W. Murnau's American silent film, "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" (1927) and Harold Lloyd's first sound film, Welcome Danger (1929).^[12]

Gounod's secular piano-accompanied songs were numerous and much praised by Ravel, but are seldom heard in recitals today.

Compositions[link]

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