1/ This is DAMNATION DE FAUST as well staged as it can be. Musically, Berlioz remains as much a mystery to me as Massenet. And the weird dramaturgy: two rounds of Faust contemplating Nature and the Simple Peasants -2 reliable 19thc tourist attractions. After 1st, Meph appears...
2/...and offers him the bargain, & after 2nd, appears again & says, emergency, Marguerite about to be executed, but you can save her by signing HERE, no qs allowed; next, Meph is galloping w Faust down to Hell, here called Pandæmonium, where he assures pan dæmonia that Faust...
3/ is his bc “he has freely signed,” which of course Faust has not done, tho from all we’ve seen of him it wd be minimal loss if he had. So there’s this big non-social-distanced party among pan dæmonia, and it plainly sucks for Faust, but there’s a chorus that proclaims...
4/that Marguerite is saved, tho not as nice a one as at the end of Gounod’s FAUST, which in turn is garish compared to the simple “È salva!” at the end of the Prison Scene in Boito’s MEFISTOFELE.
5/ You’ll say I just don’t like 19thc French opera. Not true: I like Gounod, Offenbach, and Saint-Saëns. And then the French 20thc brings us Debussy and Poulenc!
6/ If this is French Week @MetOpera, maybe within days we’ll get SAMSON, PELLÉAS, and DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES!
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.