World premiere: 19 March 1859, Théâtre Lyrique, Paris
Premiere at the Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theatre: 31 December 1863, Imperial Italian Opera Company
Premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre: 15 September 1869, Imperial Russian Opera Company (performed in Russian, translated by Pyotr Kalashnikov)
Premiere of this production: 26 April 2013
Running time: 3 hours 20 minutes
The performance has one interval
Interview with stage director and set designer Isabella Bywater >>
“How do you feel about religion?” the naïve Gretchen asks of Faust the scientist in Goethe’s tragedy. the librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré did not include this famous question in their own text for the opera, although for the composer the problems of religious themes was one of the most important issues. Charles Gounod was not just a rank and file parishioner – for several years he worked as a church musician and even contemplated becoming a priest. the astounding organ music and chorales in the opera Faust were written by the former church organist and precentor, for whom God and the Devil were by no means abstract beings. In staging Faust at the Mariinsky Theatre, British designer and stage director Isabella Bywater recalled her own experiences of religion, and it was interesting for her to observe “a religious man who does something that he knows is wrong in the eyes of his God.” As a representative of the liberal 21st century, Bywater does not regard the horned and tailed one as a separate entity: for her, Méphistophélès, like the devil from the snuffbox, “is born” straight out of Faust’s bed and forms an indivisible tandem together with him. It is not “the father of a lie”, but rather man who creates evil, and he must answer for this. Monsters swarm in the dark depths of the human soul (on the stage this is represented by silent figures of obliging demons), and each and everyone must restrain them him or herself.
The tragic story of the love between Faust and Marguerite in the Mariinsky Theatre’s production has been moved to the outset of the 20th century, though the director makes us understand: it is a story that repeats itself over and over. the protagonists wander among tombstones on which they may read their own names and dates from different centuries. Within the context of modern-day morality, when the old concepts of honour and dishonour or guilt and innocence have been reassessed, Bywater shows Faust’s sinfulness, comparing him to Nabokov’s Humbert and Marguerite to Lolita. the opera’s heroine is fourteen years of age, and her seducer is an old man who has re-acquired only his physical youthfulness. For Faust, the object of his affections is also initially simply the “nymphet” Gretchen, one of numerous schoolgirls with a satchel, a flower that there is an irresistible urge to pluck. Once plucked, this is a flower that turns out to be of no use to any man: neither to her lover nor to her brother. To depict this idea more clearly, Bywater has made Siébel, the only male character who is sympathetic to Marguerite, into a young woman.
The starkly bleak Gothic qualities of the stage designs do not stop Faust being a romantic production – thanks to Gounod. the simpler the gestures on the stage the more expressive the sound of the orchestra, which conveys the whole gamut of the characters’ emotions: from tenderness to frenzy, and from despair to ecstasy. the opera is crammed full of magnificent melodies, many of which have become established favourites in concert programmes: Méphistophélès’ couplets about the golden calf, Marguerite’s ballad about the King in Thule, Faust’s aria “Salute! demeure chaste et pure», the march of the soldiers, the waltz… the tragic death of Marguerite in the finale is experienced not as the triumph of death but rather as the triumph of love. Marguerite is saved because she has loved and ascends to God as to love. of this it is the music that speaks most convincingly of all. Khristina Batyushina
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