"Le veau d'or est toujours debout!" — a devil's drinking song about the worship of gold (1859)
Méphistophélès's Calf of Gold, sung at the fair in Act 2
Recording: Fédor Chaliapine (1873–1938) · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Opera · French opera
Faust
19 March 1859, Théâtre Lyrique, Paris
Charles Gounod · libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré
Gounod's setting of the first part of Goethe's drama: an old scholar sells his soul for youth, seduces and abandons a girl, kills her brother in a duel, and watches her go to the scaffold and then to heaven. For fifty years it was the most popular opera in the world, and it opened the Metropolitan Opera in 1883.
How to spot them
- ▸Sixteenth-century Germany — a study, a village fair, a garden, a church, a prison
- ▸A bass devil in red who sings a drinking song about the power of gold
- ▸A soprano who finds a casket of jewels left on her doorstep and sings to her reflection
- ▸A soldiers' chorus that generations of male-voice choirs have sung as a standalone
- ▸Germans call it Margarethe, because it is really the girl's opera
Arias & moments — listen
"Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir" — a girl finds a casket of jewels and sings to her mirror (1859)
The Jewel Song — Bianca Castafiore's party piece in the Tintin books
Recording: Charles Gounod (1818-1893), Jules Barbier, Michel Carré, Nellie Melba (1861-1931). · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
"Vous qui faites l'endormie" — a mocking serenade with a sneering laugh under a window (1859)
Méphistophélès's Act 4 serenade
Recording: Fédor Chaliapine (1873 - 1938) · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
"O merveille! … À moi les plaisirs" — an old scholar sees a vision and signs away his soul for youth (1859)
The Act 1 pact scene
Recording: Singers: Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), tenor Marcel Journet (1867–1933), bass Frieda Hempel (vocalist: soprano vocal) Maria Duchêne (vocalist: · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
"Salut! demeure chaste et pure" — a tenor greets a humble dwelling, ending on a high C (1859)
The cavatina outside Marguerite's house, with a violin obbligato
"Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux" — returning troops sing a march that male-voice choirs never abandoned (1859)
The Soldiers' Chorus, Act 4
"Il était un roi de Thulé" — a ballad about a king faithful to a golden goblet, sung at a spinning wheel (1859)
The Ballad of the King of Thule, Marguerite's first solo
Quick-fire facts
- •The libretto is by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, after Carré's play Faust et Marguerite and Part One of Goethe's Faust.
- •It was first given at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris in 1859 with spoken dialogue; recitatives and a Walpurgis Night ballet were added for the Paris Opéra in 1869.
- •It opened the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on 22 October 1883 — the Met was nicknamed the Faustspielhaus.
- •In German-speaking countries it is usually billed as Margarethe, to distinguish it from Goethe.
- •The principals are Faust (tenor), Méphistophélès (bass), Marguerite (soprano), Valentin her brother (baritone) and Siébel (a trouser role).
- •Gounod also wrote the Ave Maria laid over Bach's first prelude, the opera Roméo et Juliette, and the Funeral March of a Marionette.
- •Marguerite's redemption is signalled by a final trio and an offstage chorus of angels, with the harp arpeggios Gounod made his trademark.
- •The Flower Duet often confused with it is by Delibes, from Lakmé — nothing to do with Gounod.
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Sources
- Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Gounod, Charles-François: Faust
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Faust: opera by Gounod
- Gustav Kobbé, ed. the Earl of Harewood and Antony Peattie — The New Kobbé's Opera Book