Faust

The legend of Doctor Faust, exhorted by the demon Mephistopheles to sell his soul in exchange for eternal youth and knowledge, gave rise to a large number of musical adaptations, including those of Berlioz, Arrigo Boito, and Busoni. But the most famous is certainly Gounod’s Faust! Created in the Paris Théâtre Lyrique in 1859 on a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, this opera in five acts focuses above all on the love story between Faust and Marguerite, relegating the philosophical dimension of the plot into the background. Besides, is love not a way of life and a philosophy of its own? This is what the story of Marguerite seems to suggest, a woman who abandons any cultural relativism to reestablish the divine Truth. Thus it is no accident that in Germany, this opera is better known by the title of Margarethe, and that Bulgakov assigned to Marguerite a privileged place in his novel The Master and Margarita. Gounod’s Faust, fluctuates between realism and magic, reason and sentiment, provoking thought and reflection on fundamental questions of humanity that have animated great literature ever since.