Opera Books

THE OPERA

EDITED BY
ALBERT HILLERY BERGH

VOLUME IV.

1909

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Hervé.

     Florimond Ronger Hervé was born at Houdain, near Arras, France, in 1825. He received his musical education at l’École de St. Roche. For several years after that Hervé was an organist, but in 1856 he opened a small theatre for pantomimes, which were followed by operettas. From the latter developed the typical French light opera. Hervé was a versatile and accomplished musician, frequently appearing in the double rôle of actor and orchestra conductor, as well as that of composer and librettist.
     Hervé’s most successful opera, Le Petit Faust, was produced in London after a long run in Paris. The opera is a parody of Gounod’s Faust, and in the original production was exceedingly licentious in tone. The composer was later connected with theatres in Paris, Marseilles, Montpelier and Cairo. He died in 1892.

Le petit Faust.
(Little Faust.)

     Opera in three acts by Hervé. Libretto by the composer.
     Characters: Mephistopheles; Faust; Marguerite; schoolboys and schoolgirls; guests at the public ball; demons and others. {82}
     Place, Paris. Time, the Nineteenth Century. First produced at Paris in 1869.
     In this parody of the well-known opera of Faust the German doctor is an old schoolmaster who has under him a large class of boys and girls. Marguerite is brought to him as a new scholar by her brother Valentine, who is about to leave for the war. Marguerite is a hoyden who turns the school topsy-turvy, and then runs away.
     Faust, made young again by Mephistopheles, follows in pursuit, and finds Marguerite at a public ball, he carries her off in a cab, after having killed her brother, Valentine, in a dispute. The ghost of Valentine appears to the guilty couple and drags them off to the infernal regions, which, as represented in this production, are a melancholy burlesque of the original. The opera ends with the demons and other inhabitants of Hades, Marguerite, Faust and Mephistopheles joining in a reckless chorus and can-can.

Last updated April 18, 2007