4/16/2023 0 Comments Quitter songMéphistophélès 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. He curses hope and faith, and asks for infernal guidance. He attempts to kill himself (twice) with poison but stops each time when he hears a choir. Problems playing these files? See media help.įaust, 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"). The recording, produced by Bru Zane, featured Véronique Gens, Benjamin Bernheim and Andrew Foster-Williams in principal roles. Ī recording was made in 2018 of the 1859 version, by Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset, which endeavoured to present the opera as first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique "closer in kinship to the traditional opéra comique in its interleaving of musical numbers with spoken passages". It was not until the period between 19 that the full version was performed (and then with some minor cuts), and all performances in that production included the Walpurgisnacht ballet. It is the eighth most frequently performed opera there, with 753 performances through the 2012–2013 season. It was Faust with which the Metropolitan Opera in New York City opened for the first time on 22 October 1883. With the change from spoken dialogue to sung recitatives, plus the musical and balletic additions, the opera was thus finally transformed into a work following the conventions of grand opera. In 1869 a ballet had to be inserted (into the first scene of the final act) before the work could be played at the Opéra: it became the most frequently performed opera at that house. This number was then translated into French for subsequent productions as "Avant de quitter ces lieux" and has become one of the most familiar pieces from the opera. In 1864, when the opera was given at the same venue in English, Gounod took a theme from the prelude to the opera and wrote a new aria for the star baritone Charles Santley in the role of Valentin, 'Even bravest heart may swell' (with words by Henry Chorley). The opera was given for the first time in Italy at La Scala in 1862 and in England at Her Majesty's Theatre, London (in Italian) in 1863. It is also possible that the 1861 Dresden title change was out of respect for Spohr's close and long association with the city. Others claim the opposite: that the retitling was done to emphasise Gounod's opera's reliance on Goethe's characters, and to differentiate it from Louis Spohr's Faust, which had held the stage for many years in Germany and had recently appeared (1851) in a three-act revision. Some sources claim this was out of respect for part 1 of Goethe's poetic drama, which the opera follows closely. For many years this custom – or alternatively, staging the opera as Gretchen – continued in Germany. Performances in Germany followed, with Dresden Semperoper in 1861 being the first to bill the work as Margarethe rather than Faust. Īfter a successful initial run at the Théâtre Lyrique the publisher Antoine Choudens, who purchased the copyright for 10,000 francs, took the work (now with recitatives replacing the spoken dialogue) on tour through Germany, Belgium, Italy and England, with Caroline Miolan-Carvalho repeating her role. The tenor Hector Gruyer was originally cast as Faust but was found to be inadequate during rehearsals, being eventually replaced by a principal of the Opéra-Comique, Joseph-Théodore-Désiré Barbot, shortly before the opening night. The manager of the Théâtre Lyrique, Léon Carvalho cast his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite and there were various changes during production, including the removal and contraction of several numbers. The original version of Faust employed spoken dialogue, and it was in this form that the work was first performed.
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