Opera Books
A
BOOK OF OPERAS
THEIR
HISTORIES, THEIR PLOTS
AND THEIR MUSIC
BY
HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL
CHAPTER VII
“MEFISTOFELE”
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
Zauberguurtel” 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 Mile. Angélique Bertin’s “Faust”
(Paris, 1831), and M. de Pellaert’s (Brussels, 1834); Italian versions
were “Fausta,” by Donizetti (Mine. 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 Hartel 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 Emile de Girardin, he
would have become a journalist in Paris instead F 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 :—
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 gern
Und hüte mich mit ihm zu brechen.
Es ist gar hübsch von einem grossen Herrn,
So menschlich mit dem Teufel selbst zu sprechen.[1][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:—
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:—
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:—
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
out- side 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:
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:—
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 rinfusa
Sulla musica confusa,
or, as one English translation has it:—
All is going to dire confusion
With the music in collusion.
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.
Act II carries us first into the garden of Dame Martha,
where we find Margherita strolling arm in arm with Faust,
and Martha with Mefistofele. The gossip is trying to
seduce the devil into an avowal of love; Margherita and Faust
are discussing their first meeting and the passion which they
already feel for each other. Boito’s Margherita has more of
Goethe’s Gretchen than Gounod’s Marguerite. Like the
former, she wonders what a cavalier can find to admire in her simple
self, and protests in embarrassment when Faust (or Enrico,
as he calls himself) kisses her rough hand. Like Goethe’s maiden, too,
she is concerned about the religious beliefs of her lover, and Boito’s
Faust answers, like Goethe’s Faust, that a sincere man
dares protest neither belief nor unbelief in God. Nature, Love, Mystery,
Life, God — all are one, all to be experienced, not labelled with a
name. Then he turns the talk on herself and her domestic surroundings,
and presses the sleeping potion for her mother upon her. The scene ends
with the four people scurrying about in a double chase among the
flowers, for which Boito found exquisitely dainty music.
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 desolation
From the top to the foundation
Of creation.
For them Satan has no being;
They scorn with laughter
A hell hereafter,
And heavenly glory
As idle story.
Powers eternal! I’ll join their laugh infernal
Thinking 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 lovemaking 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 purissima
Della bellezza eterna!
Un uom ti si prosterna
Innamorato al suolo
Volgi ver me la cruna
Di 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.[1][2]
Footnotes:
- 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 Lord
So humnanly to gossip with the Devil.
— Bayard Taylor’s Translation. - “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.
Last updated November 01, 2006