[Musical excerpt—"Gut, Söhnchen, gut hab' immer"]
No sooner does it reach the lips of Leonore, however, than it becomes the utterance of proud resolve:—
[Musical excerpt—"Ich habe Muth!"]
and out of it grows a hymn of heroic daring. Marcellina's utterances are all concerned with herself, with an admixture of solicitude for her father, whose lugubrious reflections on his own impending dissolution are gloomily echoed in the music:—
[Musical excerpt—"Ich bin ja bald des Grabes Beute"]
A march accompanies the entrance of Pizarro. {2} Pizarro receives his despatches from Rocco, and from one of the letters learns that the Minister of Justice, having been informed that several victims of arbitrary power are confined in the prisons of which he is governor, is about to set out upon a tour of inspection. Such a visit might disclose the wrong done to Florestan, who is the Minister's friend and believed by him to be dead, and Pizarro resolves to shield himself against the consequences of such a discovery by compassing his death. He publishes his resolution in a furious air, "Ha! welch' ein Augenblick!" in which he gloats over the culmination of his revenge upon his ancient enemy. It is a terrible outpouring of bloodthirsty rage, and I have yet to hear the singer who can cope with its awful accents. Here, surely, Beethoven asks more of the human voice than it is capable of giving. Quick action is necessary. The officer of the guard is ordered to post a trumpeter in the watch-tower, with instructions to give a signal the moment a carriage with outriders is seen approaching from Seville. Rocco is summoned, and Pizarro, praising his courage and fidelity to duty, gives him a purse as earnest of riches which are to follow obedience. The old man is ready enough until he learns that what is expected of him is
[Musical excerpt—"Morden!"]
whereupon he revolts, nor is he moved by Pizarro's argument that the deed is demanded by the welfare of the state. Foiled in his plan of hiring an assassin, Pizarro announces that he will deal the blow himself, and commands that a disused cistern be opened to receive the corpse of his victim. The duet which is concerned with these transactions is full of striking effects. The orchestra accompanies Rocco's description of the victim as "one who scarcely lives, but seems to float like a shadow" with chords which spread a cold, cadaverous sheen over the words, while the declamation of "A blow!—and he is dumb," makes illustrative pantomime unnecessary. Leonore has overheard all, and rushes forward on the departure of the men to express her horror at the wicked plot, and proclaim her trust in the guidance and help of love as well as her courageous resolve to follow its impulses and achieve the rescue of the doomed man. The scene and air in which she does this ("Abscheulicher! wo eilst du hin?") is now a favorite concert-piece of all dramatic singers; but when it was written its difficulties seemed appalling to Fräulein Milder (afterward the famous Frau Milder-Hauptmann), who was the original Leonore. A few years before Haydn had said to her, "My dear child, you have a voice as big as a house," and a few years later she made some of her finest successes with the part; but in the rehearsals she quarrelled violently with Beethoven because of the unsingableness of passages in the Adagio, of which, no doubt, this was one:—
[Musical excerpt—"sie wird's erreichen"]
and when called upon, in 1814, to re-create the part which had been written expressly for her, she refused until Beethoven had consented to modify it. Everything is marvellous in the scena—the mild glow of orchestral color delineating the bow of promise in the recitative, the heart-searching, transfigurating, prayerful loveliness of the slow melody, the obbligato horn parts, the sweep of the final Allegro, all stand apart in operatic literature.
At Leonore's request, and presuming upon the request which Pizarro had made of him, Rocco permits the prisoners whose cells are above ground to enjoy the light and air of the garden, defending his action later, when taken to task by Pizarro, on the plea that he was obeying established custom in allowing the prisoners a bit of liberty on the name-day of the king. In an undertone he begs his master to save his anger for the man who is doomed to die. Meanwhile Leonore convinces herself that her husband is not among the prisoners who are enjoying the brief respite, and is overjoyed to learn that she is to accompany Rocco that very day to the mysterious subterranean dungeon. With the return of the prisoners to their cells, the first act ends.
An instrumental introduction ushers in the second act. It is a musical delineation of Florestan's surroundings, sufferings, and mental anguish. The darkness is rent by shrieks of pain; harsh, hollow, and threatening sound the throbs of the kettle-drums. The parting of the curtain discloses the prisoner chained to his rocky couch. He declaims against the gloom, the silence, the deathly void surrounding him, but comforts himself with the thought that his sufferings are but the undeserved punishment inflicted by an enemy for righteous duty done. The melody of the slow part of his air, which begins thus,
[Musical excerpt—"In des Lebens Frühlingstaten ist das Glück von mir gefloh'n."]
will find mention again when the overtures come under discussion. His sufferings have overheated his fancy, and, borne upon cool and roseate breezes, he sees a vision of his wife, Leonore, come to comfort and rescue him. His exaltation reaches a frenzy which leaves him sunk in exhaustion on his couch. Rocco and Leonore come to dig his grave. Melodramatic music accompanies their preparation, and their conversation while at work forms a duet. Sustained trombone tones spread a portentous atmosphere, and a contra-bassoon adds weight and solemnity to the motif which describes the labor of digging:—
[Musical excerpt]
They have stopped to rest and refresh themselves, when Florestan becomes conscious and addresses Rocco. Leonore recognizes his voice as that of her husband, and when he pleads for a drink of water, she gives him, with Rocco's permission, the wine left in her pitcher, then a bit of bread. A world of pathos informs his song of gratitude. Pizarro comes to commit the murder, but first he commands that the boy be sent away, and confesses his purpose to make way with both Fidelio and Rocco when once the deed is done. He cannot resist the temptation to disclose his identity to Florestan, who, though released from the stone, is still fettered. The latter confronts death calmly, but as Pizarro is about to plunge the dagger into his breast, Leonore (who had concealed herself in the darkness) throws herself as a protecting shield before him. Pizarro, taken aback for a moment, now attempts to thrust Leonore aside, but is again made to pause by her cry, "First kill his wife!" Consternation and amazement seize all and speak out of their ejaculations. Determined to kill both husband and wife, Pizarro rushes forward again, only to see a pistol thrust into his face, hear a shriek, "Another word, and you are dead!" and immediately after the trumpet signal which, by his own command, announces the coming of the Minister of Justice:—
[Musical excerpt]
Pizarro is escorted out of the dungeon by Rocco and attendants with torches, and the reunited lovers are left to themselves and their frenetic rejoicings. Surrounded by his guard, the populace attracted by his coming, and the prisoners into whose condition he had come to inquire, Don Fernando metes out punishment to the wicked Pizarro, welcomes his old friend back to liberty and honor, and bids Leonore remove his fetters as the only person worthy of such a task. The populace hymn wifely love and fidelity.
Mention has been made of the fact that Beethoven wrote four overtures for his opera. Three of these are known as Overtures "Leonore No. 1," "Leonore No. 2," and "Leonore No. 3"—"Leonore" being the title by which the opera was known at the unfortunate first performance. The composer was never contented with the change to "Fidelio" which was made, because of the identity of the story with the "Leonore" operas, of Gaveaux and Paër. Much confusion has existed in the books (and still exists, for that matter) touching the order in which the four overtures were composed. The early biographers were mistaken on that point, and the blunder was perpetuated by the numbering when the scores were published. The true "Leonore No. 1," is the overture known in the concert-room, where it is occasionally heard, as "Leonore No. 2." This was the original overture to the opera, and was performed at the three representations in 1805. The overture called "Leonore No. 3" was the result of the revision undertaken by Beethoven and his friends after the failure. In May, 1807, the German opera at Prague was established and "Fidelio" selected as one of the works to be given. Evidently Beethoven was dissatisfied both with the original overture and its revision, for he wrote a new one, in which he retained the theme from Florestan's air, but none of the other themes used in Nos. 2 and 3. The performances at Prague did not take place, and nobody knows what became of the autograph score of the overture. When Beethoven's effects were sold at auction after his death, Tobias Haslinger bought a parcel of dances and other things in manuscript. Among them were a score and parts of an overture in C, not in Beethoven's handwriting, but containing corrections made by him. It bore no date, and on a violin part Beethoven had written first "Overtura, Violino Imo." Later he had added words in red crayon to make it read, "Overtura in C, charakteristische Overture, Violino Imo." On February 7, 1828, the composition was played at a concert in Vienna, but notwithstanding the reminiscence of Florestan's air, it does not seem to have been associated with the opera, either by Haslinger or the critics. Before 1832, when Haslinger published the overture as Op. 138, however, it had been identified, and, not unnaturally, the conclusion was jumped at that it was the original overture. That known as "Leonore No. 2" having been withdrawn for revision by Beethoven himself, was not heard of till 1840, when it was performed at a Gewandhaus concert in Leipsic. For the revival of the opera in 1814 Beethoven composed the overture in E major, now called the "Fidelio" overture, and generally played as an introduction to the opera, the much greater "Leonore No. 3" being played either between the acts, or, as by Mahler in New York and Vienna, between the two scenes of the second act, where it may be said it distinctly has the effect of an anticlimax. The thematic material of the "Leonore" overtures Nos. 2 and 3 being practically the same, careless listeners may easily confound one with the other. Nevertheless, the differences between the two works are many and great, and a deep insight into the workings of Beethoven's mind would be vouchsafed students if they were brought into juxtaposition in the concert-room. The reason commonly given for the revision of No. 2 (the real No. 1) is that at the performance it was found that some of the passages for wind instruments troubled the players; but among the changes made by Beethoven, all of which tend to heighten the intensity of the overture which presents the drama in nuce may be mentioned the elision of a recurrence to material drawn from his principal theme between the two trumpet-calls, and the abridgment of the development or free fantasia portion. Finally, it may be stated that though the "Fidelio" overture was written for the revival of 1814, it was not heard at the first performance in that year. It was not ready, and the overture to "The Ruins of Athens" was played in its stead.
Footnotes:
{1} As the opera is performed nowadays it is in three acts, but this division is the work of stage managers or directors who treat each of the three scenes as an act. At the Metropolitan Opera House, in New York, Mr. Mahler introduced a division of the first scene into two for what can be said to be merely picturesque effect, since the division is not demanded by the dramatic situation.
{2} In Mr. Mahler's arrangement this march becomes entr'acte music to permit of a change of scene from the interior of the jailer's lodge to the courtyard of the prison prescribed in the book.
MM. Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, who made the book for Gounod's opera "Faust," went for their subject to Goethe's dramatic poem. Out of that great work, which had occupied the mind of the German poet for an ordinary lifetime, the French librettists extracted the romance which sufficed them—the story of Gretchen's love for the rejuvenated philosopher, her seduction and death. This romance is wholly the creation of Goethe; it has no place in any of the old legends which are at the bottom of the history of Dr. Faust, or Faustus. Those legends deal with the doings of a magician who has sold his soul to the devil for the accomplishment of some end on which his ambition is set. There are many such legends in mediaeval literature, and their fundamental thought is older than Christianity. In a sense, the idea is a product of ignorance and superstition combined. In all ages men whose learning and achievements were beyond the comprehension of simple folk were thought to have derived their powers from the practice of necromancy. The list is a long one, and includes some of the great names of antiquity. The imagination of the Middle Ages made bondsmen of the infernal powers out of such men as Zoroaster, Democritus, Empedocles, Apollonius, Virgil, Albertus Magnus, Merlin, and Paracelsus. In the sixth century Theophilus of Syracuse was said to have sold himself to the devil and to have been saved from damnation only by the miraculous intervention of the Virgin Mary, who visited hell and bore away the damnable compact. So far as his bond was concerned, Theophilus was said to have had eight successors among the Popes of Rome.
Architects of cathedrals and engineers of bridges were wont, if we believe popular tales, to barter their souls in order to realize their great conceptions. How do such notions get into the minds of the people? I attempted not an answer but an explanation in a preface to Gounod's opera published by Schirmer some years ago, which is serving me a good turn now. For the incomprehensible the Supernatural is the only accounting. These things are products of man's myth-making capacity and desire. With the advancement of knowledge this capacity and desire become atrophied, but spring into life again in the presence of a popular stimulant. The superstitious peasantry of Bavaria beheld a man in league with the devil in the engineer who ran the first locomotive engine through that country, More recently, I am told, the same people conceived the notion that the Prussian needle-gun, which had wrought destruction among their soldiery a the war of 1866, was an infernal machine for which Bismarck had given the immortal part of himself.
When printing was invented, it was looked upon in a double sense as a black art, and it was long and widely believed that Johann Fust, or Faust, of Mayence, the partner of Gutenberg, was the original Dr. Johann Faustus (the prototype of Goethe's Faust), who practised magic toward the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, made a compact with Mephistopheles, performed many miraculous feats, and died horribly at the last. But Fust, or Faust, was a rich and reputable merchant of Mayence who provided capital to promote the art of Gutenberg and Schöffer, and Mr. H. Sutherland Edwards, who gossips pleasantly and at great length about the Faust legends in Volume I of his book, "The Lyrical Drama," indulges a rather wild fancy when he considers it probable that he was the father of the real mediaeval in carnation of the ancient superstition. The real Faust had been a poor lad, but money inherited from a rich uncle enabled him to attend lectures at the University of Cracow, where he seems to have devoted himself with particular assiduity to the study of magic, which had at that period a respectable place in the curriculum. Having obtained his doctorial hat, he travelled through Europe practising necromancy and acquiring a thoroughly bad reputation. To the fact that this man actually lived, and lived such a life as has been described, we have the testimony of a physician, Philip Begardi; a theologian, Johann Gast, and no less a witness than Philip Melanchthon, the reformer. Martin Luther refers to Faust in his "Table Talk" as a man lost beyond all hope of redemption; Melanchthon, who says that he talked with him, adds: "This sorcerer Faust, an abominable beast, a common sewer of many devils (turpissima bestia et cloaca multorum diabolorum), boasted that he had enabled the imperial armies to win their victories in Italy."
The literary history of Faust is much too long to be even outlined here; a few points must suffice us. In a book published in Frankfort in 1587 by a German writer named Spiess, the legend received its first printed form. An English ballad on the subject appeared within a year. In 1590 there came a translation of the entire story, which was the source from which Marlowe drew his "Tragical History of the Life and Death of Dr. Faustus," brought forward on the stage in 1593 and printed in 1604. New versions of the legend followed each other rapidly, and Faust became a favorite character with playwrights, romancers, and poets. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, when Goethe conceived the idea of utilizing the subject for publishing his comprehensive philosophy of human life, it seems to have held possession of a large portion of literary Germany. All together, it was in the mind of the great poet from his adolescence till his death; but while he was working on his original plan, literary versions of the legend were published by twenty-eight German authors, including Lessing, whose manuscript, unhappily, was lost. Goethe had known the legend from childhood, when he had seen puppet-plays based on it—these plays being the vulgar progeny of Marlowe's powerful tragedy, which is still an ornament of English literature. Music was a part of these puppet-plays. In the first one that fell into my hands I find the influence of opera manifest in recitatives and airs put into the mouth of Mephistopheles, and comic songs sung by Kasperle, the Punch of the German marionette fraternity.
The love tale which furnished forth the entire opera book of MM. Carré and Barbier is, as I have said, wholly the invention of Goethe. There is the shadowy form of a maiden in some of the versions of the legend, but not a hint of the romantic sentiment so powerfully and pathetically set forth by the poet. Nor did the passion either for good or evil play a part in the agreement between Faust and the devil. That agreement covered five points only: Faust pledged himself to deny God, hate the human race, despise the clergy, never set foot in a church, and never get married. So far from being a love episode in the story, when Faustus, in the old book by Spiess, once expressed a wish to abrogate the last condition, Mephistopheles refused him permission on the ground that marriage is something pleasing to God, and for that reason in contravention of the contract. "Hast thou," quoth Mephistopheles, "sworn thyself an enemy to God and to all creatures? To this I answer thee, thou canst not marry; thou canst not serve two masters, God and thy prince. For wedlock is a chief institution ordained of God, and that thou hast promised to defy as we do all, and that thou hast not only done, but, moreover, thou hast confirmed it with thy blood. Persuade thyself that what thou hast done in contempt of wedlock, it is all to thine own delight. Therefore, Faustus, look well about thee and bethink thyself better, and I wish thee to change thy mind, for if thou keep not what thou hast promised in thy writing, we will tear thee in pieces, like the dust under thy feet. Therefore, sweet Faustus, think with what unquiet life, anger, strife, and debate thou shalt live in when thou takest a wife. Therefore, change thy mind." Faustus abandons his purpose for the time being, but within two hours summons his spirit again and demands his consent to marriage; whereupon up there comes a whirlwind, which fills the house with fire and smoke and hurls Faustus about until he is unable to stir hand or foot. Also there appears an ugly devil, so dreadful and monstrous to behold that Faustus dares not look upon him. This devil is in a mood for jesting. "How likest thou thy wedding?" he asks of Faustus, who promises not to mention marriage more, and is well content when Mephistopheles engages to bring him any woman, dead or alive, whom he may desire to possess. It is in obedience to this promise that Helen of Troy is brought back from the world of shades to be Faustus's paramour. By her he has a son, whom he calls Justus Faustus, but in the end, when Faustus loses his life, mother and child vanish. Goethe uses the scene of the amour between Faust and the ancient beauty in the second part of his poem as does Boito in his "Mefistofele," charging it with the beautiful symbolism which was in the German poet's mind. In the Polish tale of Pan Twardowsky, built on the lines of the old legend, there is a more amusing fling at marriage. In return for the help which he is to receive, the Polish wizard has the privilege of demanding three duties of the devil. After enjoying to the full the benefits conferred by two, he commands the devil to marry Mme. Twardowska. This is more than the devil had bargained for, or is willing to perform. He refuses; the contract is broken, and Twardowsky is saved. The story may have inspired Thackeray's amusing tale in "The Paris Sketch-book," entitled "The Painter's Bargain."
For the facts in the story of the composition and production of Gounod's opera, we have the authority of the composer in his autobiography. In 1856 he made the acquaintance of Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, and asked them to collaborate with him in an opera. They assenting, he proposed Goethe's "Faust" as a subject, and it met with their approval. Together they went to see M. Carvalho, who was then director of the Théâtre Lyrique. He, too, liked the idea of the opera, and the librettists went to work. The composer had written nearly half of the score, when M. Carvaiho brought the disconcerting intelligence that a grand melodrama treating the subject was in preparation at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin. Carvalho said that it would be impossible to get the opera ready before the appearance of the melodrama, and unwise to enter into competition with a theatre the luxury of whose stage mounting would have attracted all Paris before the opera could be produced. Carvalho therefore advised a change of subject, which was such a blow to Gounod that he was incapable of applying himself to work for a week. Finally, Carvalho came to the rescue with a request for a lyric comedy based on one of Molière's plays. Gounod chose "Le Médecin malgré lui," and the opera had its production at the Théâtre Lyrique on the anniversary of Molière's birth, January 15, 1858. The melodrama at the Porte Saint-Martin turned out to be a failure in spite of its beautiful pictures, and Carvalho recurred to the opera, which had been laid aside, and Gounod had it ready by July. He read it to the director in the greenroom of the theatre in that month, and Mme. Carvalho, wife of the director, who was present, was so deeply impressed with the rôle of Marguerite that M. Carvalho asked the composer's permission to assign it to her. "This was agreed upon," says Gounod, "and the future proved the choice to be a veritable inspiration."
Rehearsals began in September, 1858, and soon developed difficulties. Gounod had set his heart upon a handsome young tenor named Guardi for the titular rôle, but he was found to be unequal to its demands. This caused such embarrassment that, it is said, Gounod, who had a pretty voice and was rather fond of showing it, seriously pondered the feasibility of singing it himself. He does not tell us this in his autobiography, but neither does he tell us that he had chosen Mme. Ugalde for the part of Marguerite, and that he yielded to M. Carvalho in giving it to the director's wife because Mme. Ugalde had quarrelled with him (as prima donnas will), about Massé's opera, "La Fée Carabosse," which preceded "Faust" at the Lyrique. The difficulty about the tenor rôle was overcome by the enlistment of M. Barbot, an artist who had been a companion of Carvalho's when he sang small parts at the Opéra Comique. He was now far past his prime, and a pensioned teacher at the Conservatoire, but Gounod bears witness that he "showed himself a great musician in the part of Faust." Of Belanqué, who created the part of Méphistophélès, Gounod says that "he was an intelligent comedian whose play, physique, and voice lent themselves wonderfully to this fantastic and Satanic personage." As for Mme. Carvalho, it was the opinion of the composer that, though her masterly qualities of execution and style had already placed her in the front rank of contemporary singers, no rôle, till Marguerite fell to her lot, had afforded her opportunity to show in such measure "the superior phases of her talent, so sure, so refined, so steady, so tranquil—its lyric and pathetic qualities."
It was a distinguished audience that listened to the first performance of "Faust" on March 19, 1859. Auber, Berlioz, Reyer, Jules Janin, Perrin, Émile Ollivier, and many other men who had made their mark in literature, art, or politics sat in the boxes, and full as many more of equal distinction in the stalls. Among these latter were Delacroix, Vernet, Eugène Giraud, Pasdeloup, Scudo, Heugel, and Jules Lévy. The criticism of the journals which followed was, as usual, a blending of censure and praise. Berlioz was favorably inclined toward the work, and, with real discrimination, put his finger on the monologue at the close of the third act ("Il m'aime! Quel trouble en mon coeur") as the best thing in the score. Scudo gave expression to what was long the burden of the critical song in Germany; namely, the failure of the authors to grasp the large conception of Goethe's poem; but, with true Gallic inconsistency, he set down the soldiers' chorus as a masterpiece. The garden scene, with its sublimated mood, its ecstasy of feeling, does not seem to have moved him; he thought the third act monotonous and too long. There was no demand for the score on the part of the French publishers, but at length Choudens was persuaded to adventure 10,000 francs, one-half of an inheritance, in it. He was at that time an éditeur on a small scale, as well as a postal official, and the venture put him on the road to fortune. For the English rights Gounod is said to have received only forty pounds sterling, and this only after the energetic championship of Chorley, who made the English translation. The opera was given thirty-seven times at the Théâtre Lyrique. Ten years after its first performance it was revised to fit the schemes of the Grand Opéra, and brought forward under the new auspices on March 3, 1869. Mlle. Christine Nilsson was the new Marguerite. No opera has since equalled the popularity of "Faust" in Paris. Twenty-eight years after its first performance, Gounod was privileged to join his friends in a celebration of its 500th representation. That was in 1887. Eight years after, the 1000 mark was reached, and the 1250th Parisian representation took place in 1902.
Two years before "Faust" reached London, it was given in Germany, where it still enjoys great popularity, though it is called "Margarethe," in deference to the manes of Goethe. Within a few weeks in 1863 the opera had possession of two rival establishments in London. At Her Majesty's Theatre it was given for the first time on June 11, and at the Royal Italian Opera on July 2. On January 23, 1864, it was brought forward in Mr. Chorley's English version at Her Majesty's. The first American representation took place at the Academy of Music, New York, on November 25, 1863, the parts being distributed as follows: Margherita, Miss Clara Louise Kellogg; Siebel, Miss Henrietta Sulzer; Martha, Miss Fanny Stockton; Faust, Francesco Mazzoleni; Mephistopheles, Hanibal Biachi; Valentine, G. Yppolito; Wagner, D. Coletti. It was sung in Italian, won immediate popularity, and made money for Max Maretzek, who was at once the manager and the conductor of the company. Forty years before an English version of Goethe's tragedy (the first part, of course) had been produced at the Bowery Theatre, with the younger Wallack as Faust and Charles Hill as Mephistopheles.
The opera begins, like Goethe's dramatic poem, after the prologue, with the scene in Faust's study. The aged philosopher has grown weary of fruitless inquiry into the mystery of nature and its Creator, and longs for death. He has just passed a night in study, and as the morning breaks he salutes it as his last on earth and pledges it in a cup of poison. As he is about to put the cup to his lips, the song of a company of maidens floats in at the window. It tells of the joy of living and loving and the beauty of nature and its inspirations. Faust's hand trembles, strangely, unaccountably; again he lifts the cup, but only to pause again to listen to a song sung by a company of reapers repairing to the fields, chanting their gratitude to God for the loveliness surrounding them, and invoking His blessing. The sounds madden the despairing philosopher. What would prayer avail him? Would it bring back youth and love and faith? No. Accursed, therefore, be all things good—earth's pleasures, riches, allurements of every sort; the dreams of love; the wild joy of combat; happiness itself; science, religion, prayers, belief; above all, a curse upon the patience with which he had so long endured! He summons Satan to his aid. Méphistophélès answers the call, in the garb of a cavalier. His tone and bearing irritate Faust, who bids him begone. The fiend would know his will, his desires. Gold, glory, power?—all shall be his for the asking. But these things are not the heart's desire of Faust. He craves youthfulness, with its desires and delights, its passions and puissance. Méphistophélès promises all, and, when he hesitates, inflames his ardor with a vision of the lovely Marguerite seated at her spinning-wheel. Eagerly Faust signs the compact—the devil will serve Faust here, but below the relations shall be reversed. Faust drinks a pledge to the vision, which fades away. In a twinkling the life-weary sage is transformed into a young man, full of eager and impatient strength.
Méphistophélès loses no time in launching Faust upon his career of adventures. First, he leads him to a fair in a mediaeval town. Students are there who sing the pleasures of drinking; soldiers, too, bent on conquest—of maidens or fortresses, all's one to them; old burghers, who find delight in creature comforts; maids and matrons, flirtatious and envious. All join in the merriest of musical hubbubs. Valentin, a soldier who is about to go to the wars, commends his sister Marguerite to the care of Siebel, a gentle youth who loves her. Wagner, a student, begins a song, but is interrupted by Méphistophélès, who has entered the circle of merry-makers with Faust, and who now volunteers to sing a better song than the one just begun. He sings of the Calf of Gold ("Le veau d'or est toujours debout"), and the crowd delightedly shouts the refrain. The singer accepts a cup of wine, but, finding it not at all to his taste, he causes vintages to the taste of every one to flow from the cask which serves as a tavern sign. He offers the company a toast, "To Marguerite!" and when Valentin attempts to resent the insult to his sister with his sword, it breaks in his hand as he tries to penetrate a magic circle which Méphistophélès draws around himself. The men now suspect the true character of their singular visitor, and turn the cruciform hilts of their swords against him, to his intense discomfort. With the return of the women the merrymaking is resumed. All join in a dance, tripping it gayly to one waltz sung by the spectators and another which rises simultaneously from the instruments. Marguerite crosses the market-place on her way home from church. Faust offers her his arm, but she declines his escort—not quite so rudely as Goethe's Gretchen does in the corresponding situation. Faust becomes more than ever enamoured of the maiden, whom he had seen in the vision conjured up in the philosopher's study.
Méphistophélès is a bit amused at Faust's first attempt at wooing, and undertakes to point the way for him. He leads him into the garden surrounding the cottage in which Marguerite dwells. Siebel had just been there and had plucked a nosegay for the maiden of his heart, first dipping his fingers in holy water, to protect them from the curse which Méphistophélès had pronounced against them while parading as a fortune-teller at the fair. Faust is lost in admiration at sight of the humble abode of loveliness and innocence, and lauds it in a romance ("Salut! demeure chaste et pure"), but is taken aside by Méphistophélès, who gives warning of the approach of Marguerite, and places a casket of jewels beside the modest bouquet left by Siebel. Marguerite, seated at her spinning-wheel, alternately sings a stanza of a ballad ("Il était un Roi de Thule") and speaks her amazed curiosity concerning the handsome stranger who had addressed her in the marketplace. She finds the jewels, ornaments herself with them, carolling her delight the while, and admiring the regal appearance which the gems lend her.
Here I should like to be pardoned a brief digression. Years ago, while the German critics were resenting the spoliation of the masterpiece of their greatest poet by the French librettists, they fell upon this so-called Jewel Song ("Air des bijoux," the French call it), and condemned its brilliant and ingratiating waltz measures as being out of keeping with the character of Gretchen. In this they forgot that Marguerite and Gretchen are very different characters indeed. There is much of the tender grace of the unfortunate German maiden in the creation of the French authors, but none of her simple, almost rude, rusticity. As created by, let me say, Mme. Carvalho and perpetuated by Christine Nilsson and the painter Ary Scheffer, Marguerite is a good deal of a grande dame, and against the German critics it might appositely be pleaded that there are more traces of childish ingenuousness in her rejoicing over the casket of jewels than in any of her other utterances. The episode is poetically justified, of course, by the eighth scene of Goethe's drama, and there was not wanting one German writer who boldly came to the defence of Marguerite on the ground that she moved on a higher moral plane than Gretchen. The French librettists, while they emptied the character of much of its poetical contents, nevertheless made it in a sense more gentle, and Gounod refined it still more by breathing an ecstasy into all of its music. Goethe's Gretchen, though she rejects Faust's first advances curtly enough to be called impolite, nevertheless ardently returns Faust's kiss on her first meeting with him in the garden, and already at the second (presumably) offers to leave her window open, and accepts the sleeping potion for her mother. It is a sudden, uncontrollable rush of passion to which Marguerite succumbs. Gretchen remains in simple amaze that such a fine gentleman as Faust should find anything to admire in her, even after she has received and returned his first kiss; but Marguerite is exalted, transfigured by the new feelings surging within her.
Il m'aime! quel trouble en mon coeur!L'oiseau chante! Le vent murmure!Toutes les voix de la natureSemblent me répéter en choeur:Il t'aime!
I resume the story. Martha, the neighborhood gossip, comes to encourage Marguerite in a belief which she scarcely dares cherish, that the jewels had been left for her by some noble admirer, and her innocent pleasure is interrupted by the entrance of Faust and Méphistophélès. The latter draws Martha away, and Faust wooes the maiden with successful ardor. They have indulged in their first embrace, and said their farewells till to-morrow: Faust is about to depart, when Méphistophélès detains him and points to Marguerite, who is burdening the perfumed air with her new ecstasy. He rushes to her, and, with a cry of delight, she falls into his arms.
Goethe's scene at the fountain becomes, in the hands of the French librettists, a scene in the chamber of Marguerite. The deceived maiden is cast down by the jeers and mockings of her erstwhile companions, and comforted by Siebel. It is now generally omitted. Marguerite has become the talk of the town, and evil reports reach the ear of her brother Valentin on his return from the wars with the victorious soldiery. Valentin confronts Faust and Méphistophélès while the latter is singing a ribald serenade at Marguerite's door. The men fight, and, through the machinations of Méphistophélès, Valentin is mortally wounded. He dies denouncing the conduct of Marguerite, and cursing her for having brought death upon him. Marguerite seeks consolation in religious worship; but the fiend is at her elbow even in the holy fane, and his taunts and the accusing chant of a choir of demons interrupt her prayers. The devil reveals himself in his proper (or improper) person at the end, and Marguerite falls in a swoon.
The Walpurgis night scene of Goethe furnished the suggestion for the ballet which fills the first three scenes of the fifth act, and which was added to the opera when it was remodelled for the Grand Opéra in 1869. The scene holds its place in Paris, but is seldom performed elsewhere. A wild scene in the Harz Mountains gives way to an enchanted hail in which are seen the most famous courtesans of ancient history—Phryne, Laïs, Aspasia, Cleopatra, and Helen of Troy. The apparition of Marguerite appears to Faust, a red line encircling her neck, like the mark of a headsman's axe. We reach the end. The distraught maiden has slain her child, and now lies in prison upon her pallet of straw, awaiting death. Faust enters and tries to persuade her to fly with him. Her poor mind is all awry and occupies itself only with the scenes of her first meeting and the love-making in the garden. She turns with horror from her lover when she sees his companion, and in an agony of supplication, which rises higher and higher with each reiteration, she implores Heaven for pardon. She sinks lifeless to the floor. Méphistophélès pronounces her damned, but a voice from on high proclaims her saved. Celestial voices chant the Easter hymn, "Christ is risen!" while a band of angels bear her soul heavenward.
There is no reason to question Gounod's statement that it was he who conceived the idea of writing a Faust opera in collaboration with MM. Barbier and Carré. There was nothing novel in the notion. Music was an integral part of the old puppet-plays which dealt with the legend of Dr. Faustus, and Goethe's tragedy calls for musical aid imperatively. A musical pantomime, "Harlequin Faustus," was performed in London as early as 1715, and there were Faust operas long before even the first part of Goethe's poem was printed, which was a hundred and one years ago. A composer named Phanty brought out an opera entitled "Dr. Faust's Zaubergürtel" in 1790; C. Hanke used the same material and title at Flushing in 1794, and Ignaz Walter produced a "Faust" in Hanover in 1797. Goethe's First Part had been five years in print when Spohr composed his "Faust," but it is based not on the great German poet's version of the legend, but on the old sources. This opera has still life, though it is fitful and feeble, in Germany, and was produced in London by a German company in 1840 and by an Italian in 1852, when the composer conducted it; but I have never heard of a representation in America. Between Spohr's "Faust," written in 1813 and performed in 1818, and Boito's "Mefistofele," produced in 1868, many French, German, English, Italian, Russian, and Polish Faust operas have come into existence, lived their little lives, and died. Rietz produced a German "Faust," founded on Goethe, at Düsseldorf, in 1836; Lindpainter in Berlin, in 1854; Henry Rowley Bishop's English "Faustus" was heard in London, in 1827; French versions were Mlle. Angélique Bertin's "Faust" (Paris, 1831), and M. de Pellaert's (Brussels, 1834); Italian versions were "Fausta," by Donizetti (Mme. Pasta and Signor Donzelli sang in it in Naples in 1832), "Fausto," by Gordigiano (Florence, 1837), and "Il Fausto arrivo," by Raimondi (Naples, 1837); the Polish Faust, Twardowsky, is the hero of a Russian opera by Verstowsky (Moscow, 1831), and of a Polish opera by J. von Zaitz (Agram, 1880). How often the subject has served for operettas, cantatas, overtures, symphonies, etc., need not be discussed here. Berlioz's "Dramatic Legend," entitled "La Damnation de Faust," tricked out with stage pictures by Raoul Gunsbourg, was performed as an opera at Monte Carlo in 1903, and in New York at the Metropolitan and Manhattan opera-houses in the seasons 1906-1907 and 1907-1908, respectively; but the experiment was unsuccessful, both artistically and financially.
I have said that there is no reason to question Gounod's statement that it was he who conceived the idea of writing the opera whose popularity is without parallel in the musical history of the Faust legend; but, if I could do so without reflecting upon his character, I should like to believe a story which says that it was Barbier who proposed the subject to Gounod after Meyerbeer, to whom he first suggested it, had declined the collaboration. I should like to believe this, because it is highly honorable to Meyerbeer's artistic character, which has been much maligned by critics and historians of music since Wagner set an example in that direction. "'Faust,'" Meyerbeer is reported to have replied to Barbier's invitation, "is the ark of the covenant, a sanctuary not to be approached with profane music." For the composer who did not hesitate to make an opera out of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, this answer is more than creditable. The Germans, who have either felt or affected great indignation at the want of reverence for their great poet shown by the authors of "Faust" and "Mignon," ought to admire Meyerbeer in a special degree for the moral loftiness of his determination and the dignified beauty of its expression. Composers like Kreutzer, Reissiger, Pierson, Lassen, and Prince Radziwill have written incidental music for Goethe's tragedy without reflecting that possibly they were profaning the sanctuary; but Meyerbeer, compared with whom they were pygmies, withheld his hand, and thereby brought himself into sympathetic association with the only musician that ever lived who was completely equipped for so magnificent a task. That musician was Beethoven, to whom Rochlitz bore a commission for music to "Faust" from Breitkopf and Härtel in 1822. The Titan read the proposition and cried out: "Ha! that would be a piece of work! Something might come of that!" but declined the task because he had the choral symphony and other large plans on his mind.
Boito is not a Beethoven nor yet a Meyerbeer; but, though he did what neither of them would venture upon when he wrote a Faust opera, he did it with complete and lovely reverence for the creation of the German poet. It is likely that had he had less reverence for his model and more of the stagecraft of his French predecessors his opera would have had a quicker and greater success than fell to its lot. Of necessity it has suffered by comparison with the opera of Barbier, Carré, and Gounod, though it was far from Boito's intentions that it should ever be subjected to such a comparison. Boito is rather more poet and dramatist than he is musician. He made the book not only of "Mefistofele," but also of "Otello" and "Falstaff," which Verdi composed, "La Gioconda," for which Ponchielli wrote the music, and "Ero e Leandro," which he turned over to Bottesini, who set it with no success, and to Mancinelli, who set it with little. One of the musical pieces which the poet composed for this last opera found its way into "Mefistofele," for which work "Ero e Leandro" seems to have been abandoned. He also translated Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" into Italian. Being a poet in the first instance, and having the blood of the Northern barbarians as well as the Southern Romans in his veins, he was unwilling to treat Goethe's tragedy as the Frenchman had treated it. The tearful tale of the love of the rejuvenated philosopher, and the village maiden, with its woful outcome, did not suffice him. Though he called his opera "Mefistofele," not "Faust," he drew its scenes, of which only two have to do with Marguerite (or Gretchen), from both parts of Goethe's allegorical and philosophical phantasmagoria. Because he did this, he failed from one point of view. Attempting too much, he accomplished too little. His opera is not a well-knit and consistently developed drama, but a series of episodes, which do not hold together and have significance only for those who know Goethe's dramatic poem in its entirety. It is very likely that, as originally produced, "Mefistofele" was not such a thing of shreds and patches as it now is. No doubt, it held together better in 1868, when it was ridiculed, whistled, howled, and hissed off the stage of the Teatro la Scala, than it did when it won the admiration of the Italians in Bologna twelve years later. In the interval it had been subjected to a revision, and, the first version never having been printed, the critical fraternity became exceedingly voluble after the success in Bologna, one of the debated questions being whether Boito had bettered his work by his voluminous excisions, interpolations, and changes (Faust, now a tenor, was originally a barytone), or had weakly surrendered his better judgment to the taste of the hoi polloi, for the sake of a popular success. It was pretty fighting ground; it is yet, and will remain such so long as the means of comparison remain hidden and sentimental hero-worship is fed by the notion that Boito has refused to permit the opera or operas which he has written since to be either published or performed because the world once refused to recognize his genius. This notion, equally convenient to an indolent man or a colossal egoist—I do not believe that Boito is either—has been nurtured by many pretty stories; but, unhappily, we have had nothing to help us to form an opinion of Boito as a creative artist since "Mefistofele" appeared, except the opera books written for Verdi and Ponchielli and the libretto of "Ero e Leandro."
Boito's father was an Italian, his mother a Pole. From either one or both he might have inherited the intensity of expression which marks his works, both poetical and musical; but the tendency to philosophical contemplation which characterizes "Mefistofele," even in the stunted form in which it is now presented, is surely the fruit of his maternal heritage and his studies in Germany. After completing the routine of the conservatory in Milan, he spent a great deal of time in Paris and the larger German cities, engrossed quite as much in the study of literature as of music. Had he followed his inclinations and the advice of Victor Hugo, who gave him a letter of introduction to Émile de Girardin, he would have become a journalist in Paris instead of the composer of "Mefistofele" and the poet of "Otello," "Falstaff," "La Gioconda," and "Ero e Leandro." But Girardin was too much occupied with his own affairs to attend to him when Boito presented himself, and after waiting wearily, vainly, and long, he went to Poland, where, for want of something else to do, he sketched the opera "Mefistofele," which made its memorable fiasco at Milan in March, 1868.
To show that it is impossible to think of "Mefistofele" except as a series of disconnected episodes, it suffices to point out that its prologue, epilogue, and four acts embrace a fantastic parody or perversion of Goethe's Prologue in Heaven, a fragment of his Easter scene, a smaller fragment of the scene in Faust's study, a bit of the garden scene, the scene of the witches' gathering on the Brocken, the prison scene, the classical Sabbath in which Faust is discovered in an amour with Helen of Troy, and the death and salvation of Faust as an old man. Can any one who knows that music, even of the modern dramatic type, in which strictly musical forms have given way to as persistent an onward flow as the text itself, must of necessity act as a clog on dramatic action, imagine that such a number and variety of scenes could be combined into a logical, consistent whole, compassed by four hours in performance? Certainly not. But Boito is not content to emulate Goethe in his effort to carry his listeners "from heaven through the earth to hell"; he must needs ask them to follow him in his exposition of Goethe's philosophy and symbolism. Of course, that is impossible during a stage representation, and therefore he exposes the workings of his mind in an essay and notes to his score. From these we may learn, among other things, that the poet-composer conceives Faust as the type of man athirst for knowledge, of whom Solomon was the Biblical prototype, Prometheus the mythological, Manfred and Don Quixote the predecessors in modern literature. Also that Mephistopheles is as inexhaustible as a type of evil as Faust is as a type of virtue, and therefore that this picturesque stage devil, with all his conventionality, is akin to the serpent which tempted Eve, the Thersites of Homer, and—mirabile dictu!—the Falstaff of Shakespeare!
The device with which Boito tried to link the scenes of his opera together is musical as well as philosophical. In the book which Barbier and Carré wrote for Gounod, Faust sells his soul to the devil for a period of sensual pleasure of indefinite duration, and, so far as the hero is concerned, the story is left unfinished. All that has been accomplished is the physical ruin of Marguerite. Méphistophélès exults for a moment in contemplation of the destruction, also, of the immortal part of her, but the angelic choir proclaims her salvation. Faust departs hurriedly with Méphistophélès, but whether to his death or in search of new adventures, we do not know. The Germans are, therefore, not so wrong, after all, in calling the opera after the name of the heroine instead of that of the hero. In Boito's book the love story is but an incident. Faust's compact with Mefistofele, as in Goethe's dramatic poem, is the outcome of a wager between Mefistofele and God, under the terms of which the Spirit of Evil is to be permitted to seduce Faust from righteousness, if he can. Faust's demand of Mefistofele is rest from his unquiet, inquisitive mind; a solution of the dark problem of his own existence and that of the world; finally, one moment of which he can say, "Stay, for thou art lovely! "The amour with Margherita does not accomplish this, and so Boito follows Goethe into the conclusion of the second part of his drama, and shows Faust, at the end, an old man about to die. He recalls the loves of Margherita and Helen, but they were insufficient to give him the desired moment of happiness. He sees a vision of a people governed by him and made happy by wise laws of his creation. He goes into an ecstasy. Mefistofele summons sirens to tempt him; and spreads his cloak for another flight. But the chant of celestial beings falls into Faust's ear, and he speaks the words which terminate the compact. He dies. Mefistofele attempts to seize upon him, but is driven back by a shower of roses dropped by cherubim. The celestial choir chants redeeming love.
Thus much for the dramatic exposition. Boito's musical exposition rests on the employment of typical phrases, not in the manner of Wagner, indeed, but with the fundamental purpose of Wagner. A theme:—
[Musical excerpt]
which begins the prologue, ends the epilogue. The reader may label it as he pleases. Its significance is obvious from the circumstances of its employment. It rings out fortissimo when the mystic chorus, which stands for the Divine Voice, puts the question, "Knowest thou Faust?" An angelic ascription of praise to the Creator of the Universe and to Divine Love is the first vocal utterance and the last. In his notes Boito observes: "Goethe was a great admirer of form, and his poem ends as it begins,—the first and last words of 'Faust' are uttered in Heaven." Then he quotes a remark from Blaze de Bury's essay on Goethe, which is apropos, though not strictly accurate: "The glorious motive which the immortal phalanxes sing in the introduction to the first part of 'Faust' recurs at the close, garbed with harmonies and mystical clouds. In this Goethe has acted like the musicians,—like Mozart, who recurs in the finale of 'Don Giovanni' to the imposing phrase of the overture."
M. de Bury refers, of course, to the supernatural music, which serves as an introduction to the overture to "Don Giovanni," and accompanies the visitation of the ghostly statue and the death of the libertine. But this is not the end of Mozart's opera as he wrote it, as readers of this book have been told.
This prologue of "Mefistofele" plays in heaven. "In the heavens," says Theodore Marzials, the English translator of Boito's opera, out of deference to the religious sensibilities of the English people, to spare which he also changes "God" into "sprites," "spirits," "powers of good," and "angels." The effect is vastly diverting, especially when Boito's paraphrase of Goethe's
Von Zeit zu Zeit seh' ich den Alten gernUnd hüte mich mit ihm zu brechen.Es ist gar hübsch von einem grossen Herrn,So menschlich mit dem Teufel selbst zu sprechen. {1}
is turned into: "Now and again 'tis really pleasant thus to chat with the angels, and I'll take good care not to quarrel with them. 'Tis beautiful to hear Good and Evil speak together with such humanity." The picture disclosed by the opening of the curtain is a mass of clouds, with Mefistofele, like a dark blot, standing on a corner of his cloak in the shadow. The denizens of the celestial regions are heard but never seen. A trumpet sounds the fundamental theme, which is repeated in full harmony after instruments of gentler voice have sung a hymn-like phrase, as follows:—
[Musical excerpt]
It is the first period of the "Salve Regina" sung by Earthly Penitents in the finale of the prologue. The canticle is chanted through, its periods separated by reiterations of the fundamental theme. A double chorus acclaims the Lord of Angels and Saints. A plan, evidently derived from the symphonic form, underlies the prologue as a whole. Prelude and chorus are rounded out by the significant trumpet phrase. One movement is completed. There follows a second movement, an Instrumental Scherzo, with a first section beginning thus:—
[Musical excerpt]
and a trio. Over this music Mefistofele carries on converse with God. He begs to disagree with the sentiments of the angelic hymn. Wandering about the earth, he had observed man and found him in all things contemptible, especially in his vanity begotten by what he called "reason"; he, the miserable little cricket, vaingloriously jumping out of the grass in an effort to poke his nose among the stars, then falling back to chirp, had almost taken away from the devil all desire to tempt him to evil doings. "Knowest thou Faust?" asks the Divine Voice; and Mefistofele tells of the philosopher's insatiable thirst for wisdom. Then he offers the wager. The scene, though brief, follows Goethe as closely as Goethe follows the author of the Book of Job:—
Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.
And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?
Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? . . .
And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
Boito treats the interview in what he calls a Dramatic Interlude, which gives way to the third movement, a Vocal Scherzo, starting off with a chorus of Cherubim, who sing in fugacious thirds and droning dactyls:—
[Musical excerpt—"siam nimbi volanti dai limbi, nei santi"]
It is well to note particularly Boito's metrical device. He seemingly counted much on the effect of incessantly reiterated dactyls. Not only do his Cherubim adhere to the form without deviation, but Helen and Pantalis use it also in the scene imitated from Goethe's Classical Walpurgis Night,—use it for an especial purpose, as we shall see presently. Rapid syllabication is also a characteristic of the song of the witches in the scene on the Brocken; but the witches sing in octaves and fifths except when they kneel to do homage to Mefistofele; then their chant sounds like the responses to John of Leyden's prayer by the mutinous soldiers brought to their knees in "Le Prophète." Not at all ineptly, Mefistofele, who does not admire the Cherubs, likens their monotonous cantillation to the hum of bees. A fourth movement consists of a concluding psalmody, in which the Cherubs twitter, Earthly Penitents supplicate the Virgin, and the combined choirs, celestial and terrestrial, hymn the Creator.
The tragedy now begins. Boito changes the order of the scenes which he borrows from Goethe, presenting first the merrymaking of the populace outside the walls of Frankfort-on-the-Main, and then the interview between Faust and Mefistofele, in which, as in the opening scene of Gounod's opera, the infernal compact is agreed upon. There is some mediaeval pageantry in the first scene,—a cavalcade headed by the Elector, and including dignitaries, pages, falconers, the court fool, and ladies of the court. Students, townspeople, huntsmen, lads, and lasses pursue their pleasures, and up and down, through the motley groups, there wanders a gray friar, whose strange conduct repels some of the people, and whose pious garb attracts others. Faust and Wagner, his pupil, come upon the scene, conversing seriously, and stop to comment on the actions of the friar, who is approaching them, supposedly in narrowing circles. Wagner sees nothing in him except a mendicant friar, but Faust calls attention to the fact that to his eye, flames blaze up from his footprints. This friar is the "poodle" of Goethe's poem, and Mefistofele in disguise. It is thus that the devil presented himself to Faustus in the old versions of the legend, and as a friar he is a more practicable dramatic figure than he would have been as a dog; but it cannot but provoke a smile from those familiar with Goethe's poem to hear (as we do in the opera a few moments later) the familiar lines:—
Das also war des Pudels Kern!Ein fahrender Scolast?
turned into: "This, then, was the kernel of the friar! A cavalier?" The music of the score is characterized by frequent changes from triple to double time, as illustrated in the opening measures:
[Musical excerpt]
The rhythmical energy and propulsiveness thus imparted to the music of the merrymaking is heightened by the dance. Peasants rush upon the scene with shouts of "Juhé!" and make preparations to trip it while singing what, at first, promises to be a waltz-song:—
[Musical excerpt]
The dance, however, is not a waltz, but an obertass—the most popular of the rustic dances of Poland. Why should Boito have made his Rhinelanders dance a step which is characteristically that of the Poles? Sticklers for historical verity could easily convict him of a most unpardonable anachronism, if they were so disposed, by pointing out that even if German peasants were in the habit of dancing the obertass now (which they are not), they could not have done it in the sixteenth century, which is the period of the drama, for the sufficient reason that the Polish dance was not introduced in North Germany till near the middle of the eighteenth century. But we need not inquire too curiously into details like this when it comes to so arbitrary an art-form as the opera. Yet Boito was his own poet, master of the situation so far as all parts of his work were concerned, and might have consulted historical accuracy in a department in which Gluck once found that he was the slave of his ballet master. Gluck refused to introduce a chaconne into "Iphigénie en Aulide." "A chaconne?" cried the composer. "When did the Greeks ever dance a chaconne?" "Didn't they?" replied Vestris; "then so much the worse for the Greeks!" A quarrel ensued, and Gluck, becoming incensed, withdrew his opera and would have left Paris had not Marie Antoinette come to the rescue. But Vestris got his chaconne. In all likelihood Boito put the obertass into "Mefistofele" because he knew that musically and as a spectacle the Polish dance would be particularly effective in the joyous hurly-burly of the scene. A secondary meaning of the Polish word is said to be "confusion," and Boito doubtless had this in mind when he made his peasants sing with an orderly disorder which is delightful:—
Tutti vanno alla rinfusaSulla musica confusa,
or, as one English translation has it:—
All is going to dire confusionWith the music in collusion.
[Musical excerpt—"Juhé, Juhé! Tutti vanno alla rinfusa"]
Perhaps, too, Boito had inherited a love for the vigorous dance from his Polish mother.
Night falls, and Faust is returned to his laboratory. The gray friar has followed him (like Goethe's poodle) and slips into an alcove unobserved. The philosopher turns to the Bible, which lies upon a lectern, and falls into a meditation, which is interrupted by a shriek. He turns and sees the friar standing motionless and wordless before him. He conjures the apparition with the seal of Solomon, and the friar, doffing cowl and gown, steps forward as a cavalier (an itinerant scholar in Goethe). He introduces himself as a part of the power that, always thinking evil, as persistently accomplishes good—the spirit of negation. The speech ("Son lo Spirito che nega sempre") is one of the striking numbers of Boito's score, and the grim humor of its "No! "seems to have inspired the similar effect in Falstaff's discourse on honor in Verdi's opera. The pair quickly come to an understanding on the terms already set forth.
There is a change from the pretty garden of the first scene, with its idyllic music, to the gathering place of witches and warlocks, high up in the Brocken, in the second. We witness the vile orgies of the bestial crew into whose circles Faust is introduced, and see how Mefistofele is acclaimed king and receives the homage. Here Boito borrows a poetical conceit from Goethe's scene in the witches' kitchen, and makes it a vehicle for a further exposition of the character and philosophy of the devil. Mefistofele has seated himself upon a rocky throne and been vested with the robe and symbols of state by the witches. Now they bring to him a crystal globe, which he takes and discourses upon to the following effect (the translation is Theodore T. Barker's):—
Lo, here is the world!A bright sphere rising,Setting, whirling, glancing,Round the sun in circles dancing;Trembling, toiling,Yielding, spoiling,Want and plenty by turn enfold it—This world, behold it!On its surface, by time abraded,Dwelleth a vile race, defiled, degraded;Abject, haughty,Cunning, naughty,Carrying war and desolationFrom the top to the foundationOf creation.For them Satan has no being;They scorn with laughterA hell hereafter,And heavenly gloryAs idle story.Powers eternal! I'll join their laugh infernalThinking o'er their deeds diurnal. Ha! Ha!Behold the world!
He dashes the globe to pieces on the ground and thereby sets the witches to dancing. To the antics of the vile crew Faust gives no heed; his eyes are fixed upon a vision of Margherita, her feet in fetters, her body emaciated, and a crimson line encircling her throat. His love has come under the headsman's axe! In the Ride to Hell, which concludes Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust," the infernal horsemen are greeted with shouts in a language which the mystical Swedenborg says is the speech of the lower regions. Boito also uses an infernal vocabulary. His witches screech "Saboé har Sabbah!" on the authority of Le Loyer's "Les Spectres."
From the bestiality of the Brocken we are plunged at the beginning of the third act into the pathos of Margherita's death. The episode follows the lines laid down by Barbier and Carré in their paraphrase of Goethe, except that for the sake of the beautiful music of the duet (which Boito borrowed from his unfinished "Ero e Leandro"), we learn that Margherita had drowned her child. Faust urges her to fly, but her poor mind is all awry. She recalls the scene of their first meeting and of the love-making in Dame Martha's garden, and the earlier music returns, as it does in Gounod's score, and as it was bound to do. At the end she draws back in horror from Faust, after uttering a prayer above the music of the celestial choir, just as the executioner appears. Mefistofele pronounces her damned, but voices from on high proclaim her salvation.
The story of Faust and Margherita is ended, but, in pursuance of his larger plan, already outlined here, Boito makes use of two scenes from the second part of Goethe's drama to fill a fourth act and epilogue. They tell of the adventure of Faust with Helen of Troy, and of his death and the demon's defeat. The "Night of the Classical Sabbath" serves a dramatic purpose even less than the scene on the Brocken, but as an intermezzo it has many elements of beauty, and its scheme is profoundly poetical. Unfortunately we can only attain to a knowledge of the mission of the scene in the study with Goethe's poem in hand and commentaries and Boito's prefatory notes within reach. The picture is full of serene loveliness. We are on the shore of Peneus, in the Vale of Tempe. The moon at its zenith sheds its light over the thicket of laurel and oleanders, and floods a Doric temple on the left. Helen of Troy and Pantalis, surrounded by a group of sirens, praise the beauty of nature in an exquisite duet, which flows on as placidly as the burnished stream. Faust lies sleeping upon a flowery bank, and in his dreams calls upon Helen in the intervals of her song. Helen and Pantalis depart, and Faust is ushered in by Mefistofele. He is clad in his proper mediaeval garb, in strong contrast to the classic robes of the denizens of the valley in Thessaly. Mefistofele suggests to Faust that they now separate; the land of antique fable has no charm for him. Faust is breathing in the idiom of Helen's song like a delicate perfume which inspires him with love; Mefistofele longs for the strong, resinous odors of the Harz Mountains, where dominion over the Northern hags belongs to him. Faust is already gone, and he is about to depart when there approaches a band of Choretids. With gentle grace they move through a Grecian dance, and Mefistofele retires in disgust. Helen returns profoundly disquieted by a vision of the destruction of Troy, of which she was the cause. The Choretids seek to calm her in vain, but the tortures of conscience cease when she sees Faust before her. He kneels and praises her beauty, and she confesses herself enamoured of his speech, in which sound answers sound like a soft echo. "What," she asks, "must I do to learn so sweet and gentle an idiom?" "Love me, as I love you," replies Faust, in effect, as they disappear through the bowers. Now let us turn to Goethe, his commentators, and Boito's explanatory notes to learn the deeper significance of the episode, which, with all its gracious charm, must still appear dramatically impertinent and disturbing. Rhyme was unknown to the Greeks, the music of whose verse came from syllabic quantity. Helen and her companions sing in classic strain, as witness the opening duet:—
La luna immobile innonda l'etere d'un raggio pallido.Callido balsamo stillan le ramora dai cespi roridi;Doridi e silfidi, cigni e nereidi vagan sul l'alighi.
Faust addresses Helen in rhyme, the discovery of the Romantic poets:—
Forma ideal purissimaDella bellezza eterna!Un uom ti si prosternaInnamorato al suoloVolgi ver me la crunaDi tua pupilla bruna,Vaga come la luna,Ardente come il sole.
"Here," says Boito, "is a myth both beautiful and deep. Helen and Faust represent Classic and Romantic art gloriously wedded, Greek beauty and Germanic beauty gleaming under the same aureole, glorified in one embrace, and generating an ideal poesy, eclectic, new, and powerful."
The contents of the last act, which shows us Faust's death and salvation, have been set forth in the explanation of Boito's philosophical purpose. An expository note may, however, profitably be added in the poet-composer's own words: "Goethe places around Faust at the beginning of the scene four ghostly figures, who utter strange and obscure words. What Goethe has placed on the stage we place in the orchestra, submitting sounds instead of words, in order to render more incorporeal and impalpable the hallucinations that trouble Faust on the brink of death." The ghostly figures referred to by Boito are the four "Gray Women" of Goethe—Want, Guilt, Care, and Necessity. Boito thinks like a symphonist, and his purpose is profoundly poetical, but its appreciation asks more than the ordinary opera-goer is willing or able to give. {2}
Footnotes:
{1} I like, at times, to hear the Ancient's word,And have a care to be most civil:It's really kind of such a noble LordSo humnanly to gossip with the Devil.—Bayard Taylor's Translation.
{2} "Mefistofele" had its first performance in New York at the Academy of Music on November 24, 1880. Mlle. Valleria was the Margherita and Elena, Miss Annie Louise Cary the Marta and Pantalis, Signor Campanini Faust, and Signor Novara Mefistofele. Signor Arditi conducted. The first representation of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera-house took place on December 5, 1883, when, with one exception, the cast was the same as at the first performance in London, at Her Majesty's Theatre, on July 6, 1880—namely, Nilsson as Margherita and Elena, Trebelli as Marta and Pantalis, Campanini as Faust and Mirabella as Mefistofele. (In London Nannetti enacted the demon.) Cleofonte Campanini, then maestro di cembalo at the Metropolitan Opera-house, conducted the performance.