Abstract
Blissful waltzes, romantic melodies, snappy couplets, and the tragedy of Faust – does all that even go together? Charles Gounod had wanted to compose an opera based on Goethe’s Faust since his youth. But Gounod’s Faust character has little in common with the Goethe’s German scholar. It is not the desire to «know what holds the innermost world together» but rather pure hedonism that drives Gounod’s Faust. The French composer freely adapts the oft-treated Gretchen tragedy to create a precise portrait of contemporary society at the time of the Second French Empire, with its unscrupulous addiction to pleasure and enjoyment. «Oh, to be young once again, to give into pleasure once again!» is Faust’s great wish. Then the devil appears and promises to deliver exactly that, provided Faust bequeaths his soul to Satan in return. Once the contract is signed, Faust plunges into a passionate relationship with Marguerite, whose innocence and naiveté attract him as much as her lower-class origins, which he finds exotic. But when she becomes pregnant, he leaves her. Abandoned, she kills her child, and is subsequently executed. The opera features some of Gounod’s most famous musical numbers: the score holds not only Marguerite’s famous «Jewel Song», but Méphistophélès’ couplet about the «Golden Calf», Faust’s aria «Salut! Demeure chaste et pure», and the «Soldiers’ Chorus». Tenor Saimir Pirgu, who recently made his highly acclaimed debut at the Opernhaus Zürich as Offenbach’s Hoffmann, bows as another eponymous character. As in our last revival, soprano Anita Hartig will appear as Marguerite.
