Devilish Deeds: A Fast Guide to Faust

Or, how to keep seven different versions of the same story straight.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

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The Devil you say! Rene Pape as Mephistopheles in Gounod's Faust.
Photo by Catherine Ashmore for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

"Faust by Christopher Marlowe. Faust by Goethe. Faust by Gounod, Faust by Hector Berlioz. I tell you, anyone who touches this idea has turned it into a gold mine."--Jeffrey Cordova in The Band Wagon. (In the film, his attempt to turn a Broadway show into a modern-day production of Faust turns out to be a dreadful box-office bomb.)

When you start getting interested in classical music, it is overwhelming how many composers set versions of Faust. The story of the German scholar who sells his soul to a representative of the power of darkness in an effort to regain his youth and find love has universal human resonance. The following is a mercifully brief and incomplete guide to different versions of Faust with a focus on those that incorporate music drama and voice into re-telling the story. (That's to get me off the hook for not mentioning the "Faust Symphonies" by Liszt and Wagner!) With that, let's dive into the depths of hell for seven versions of Faust...by seven different composers.

Opera Review: Deviled Eggs

The Washington National Opera's Faust goes directly to Hell.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Hellbound: Raymond Aceto as Méphistophélès in Faust.
Photo by Scott Suchman for the Washington National Opera.

In the last hundred years, Charles Gounod's Faust has fallen from the pinnacle of the repertory. Its descent has been rapid, almost as fast as that of its protagonist, a searching scholar who sells his soul to Satan in the opera's first act. Faust has fallen into irrelevance in this new century. Its stirring choruses, sweet harmonies and story of demonic love and angelic redemption seem quaint in this dark age. When fascists are defended in the media by the sitting President, and hatred lurks in the corridors of power, Faust just ain't scary anymore.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Roméo et Juliette

"A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life..."
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Publicity photo of Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo as Juliette and her Roméo.
Photo by Kristian Schuller for the Metropolitan Opera.

The Met unveils a new take on Shakespeare's classic story of doomed young love, with Vittorio Grigolo and Diana Damrau singing Charles Gounod's gorgeous music. This new production by Bart Sher was first seen at Salzburg and La Scala. It arrives at the Met on New Year's Eve.

Opera Review: East Side Story

The New York Opera Exchange presents Romeo et Juliette.
by Ellen Fishbein, special to Superconductor.

Kendra Berentsen (left) and Scott Ingham star in Romeo et Juliette.
Photo courtesy New York Opera Exchange.

On Sunday evening, the fledgling New York Opera Exchange explored French repertory with a charming production of Romeo et Juliette, the five-act adaptation of Shakespeare's play by composer Charles Gounod. The production was mounted at the Unitarian Church of All Souls on Lexington Avenue. Though beautiful, the space was a risky choice: sound resonated freely in the room, but so did  mistakes. A few hiccups in the overture gave way to a consistent performance from the orchestra, which navigated Gounod’s delicate dissonances smoothly under conductor David Liebowitz.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Faust

The Met continues further testing on its "atomic" Faust.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Atomic babe: Marina Poplavskaya in Faust.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

Dez McAnuff's 2010 production of Gounod's Faust re-imagined Gounod's opera about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil as a metaphor for the creation and testing of the atomic bomb in the mid-20th century. While the spare staging featured an elegant Faust and Mephistopheles trading in lab coats for spiffy suits, audience and critical fallout was decidedly mixed.

Five Operas for Valentine's Day

He's dead, Jim.

It's February 14. In addition to being Renée Fleming's birthday, today is a good day to talk about that all important component of opera.

L'amour. Amore. Liebe. любовь.

Mozart: Don Giovanni
Sure it all goes to hell for the amorous Don in Mozart's Dramma giocoso. Mozart and da Ponte conjured this libretto based on the old Spanish legend of a nobleman whose romantic conquests range into the thousands. But Mozart's greatest opera has some of his most romantic music, including the unforgettable "La ci darem la mano."

Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia
This prequel to The Marriage of Figaro finds the titular character playing cupid for Count Almaviva, who is determined to marry Rosina out from under her guardian: cranky old Dr. Bartolo. This is an immortal comedy, with memorable melodies, the famous "Largo al factotum" aria, and much manic comic business. And unlike some of the operas on this list, it ends happily!

Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore
There are a number of great Donizetti comedies--and this is the greatest. Elisir is the tale of a country bumpkin who woos the prettiest girl in town armed with nothing but a bottle of cheap vino (which was sold to him as a "love potion" by the duplicitous Dr. Dulcamara). And it features "Una furtiva lagrima", a signature aria from Caruso to Pavarotti to Juan Diego Florez. And it's coming to City Opera in March!

Gounod:Roméo et Juliette
Shakespeare's tragedy reimagined as French opera. There are a few operatic adaptations of the play floating around (Bellini's I Capuletti i il Montecchi comes to mind) but this version by the composer of Faust comes closest to capturing the spirit of the play. Coming to the Met next month, with Angela Gheorghiu and Matthew Polenzani in the title roles.



Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
Love potions also figure prominently in Tristan, which Wagner wrote in a fit of passion for Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of his patron. The romance didn't last, but the opera resulted in Wagner creating a four-hour paean to passion and adultery in medieval Cornwall.

The three-act opera starts with a famous, dissonant chord (known as the "Tristan Chord"). The dissonance then remains unresolved for three acts, up until the final apotheosis: when Isolde achieves a state of post-Romantic transcendence while singing gloriously over Tristan's corpse.

In other words, this is Wagner's "unending melody": four hours of shifting tonalities and tectonic plates of brass, strings and voices. While it's unbearably gorgeous, the score of Tristan may not be the best music to make out to. Unless that's your thing, of course.