MARGUERITE (OR FAUST).
Opera in five acts by CHARLES GOUNOD.
The subject of this piece is taken from the first part of Goethe's greatest drama—"Faust".
Faust, a celebrated old Doctor, is consumed by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, but, having already lived through a long life devoted to the acquirement of learning and to hard work as a scholar, without having his soul-hunger appreciably relieved, is dissatisfied and in his disappointment wishes to be released from this life, which has grown to be a burden to him. At this moment Mephistopheles, the incarnation of the Evil One, appears and persuades him to try life in a new shape. The old and learned Doctor has only known it in theory, Mephisto will now show it to him in practice and in all the splendor of youth and freshness. Faust agrees, and Mephisto endows him with youth and beauty. In this guise he sees earth anew. It is Easter-time, when all is budding and aglow with freshness and young life and on such a bright spring-day he first sees Margaretha and at once offers her his arm.
But this lovely maiden, pure and innocent, and well guarded by a jealous brother, named Valentin, refuses his company somewhat sharply.—Nevertheless she cannot help seeing the grace and good bearing of the fine cavalier, and the simple village-maiden is inwardly pleased with his flattery. A bad fate wills it, that her brother Valentin, who is a soldier, has to leave on active service and after giving many good advices and warnings for his beautiful sister's wellfare he goes and so Mephisto is able to introduce Faust to the unprotected girl by means of a message, which he is supposed to have received for an old aunt of Margaretha's "Frau Marthe Schwertlein". This old gossip, hearing from Mephisto that her husband has been killed in battle, lends a willing ear to the flatteries of the cunning Devil; and Margaretha is left to Faust, who wins her by his love and easy manners. She is only a simple maiden, knowing nothing of the world's ways and wiles, and she accepts her lover's precious gifts with childish delight.
By and bye, her brother Valentin returns victorious from the war, but alas! too late! He challenges his sister's seducer; Mephisto however directs Faust's sword, and the faithful brother is much against Faust's own will slain, cursing his sister with his last breath.
Now Margaretha awakes to the awful reality of her situation and she shrinks from her brother's murderer. Everybody shuns her, and she finds herself alone and forsaken. In despair she seeks refuge in church, but her own conscience is not silenced; it accuses her more loudly than all the pious songs and prayers. Persecuted by evil spirits, forsaken and forlorn, Margaretha's reason gives way, and she drowns her new-born child.
Meanwhile Mephisto has done everything to stifle in Faust the pangs of conscience. Faust never wills the evil, he loves Margaretha sincerely, but the bad spirit urges him onward. He shows him all the joys and splendors of earth, and antiquity in its most perfect form in the person of Helena, but in the midst of all his orgies Faust sees Margaretha. He beholds her, pale, unlike her former self, in the white dress of the condemned, with a blood-red circle round the delicate neck. Then he knows no rest, he feels that she is in danger, and he bids Mephisto save her.
Margaretha has actually been thrown into prison for her deed of madness and now the executioner's axe awaits her. She sits on the damp straw, rocking a bundle, which she takes for her baby, and across her poor wrecked brain there flit once more pictures of all the scenes of her short-lived happiness. Then Faust enters with Mephisto, and tries to persuade her to escape with them. But she instinctively shrinks from her lover, loudly imploring God's and the Saint's pardon. God has mercy on her, for, just as the bells are tolling for her execution; she expires, and her soul is carried to Heaven by angels, there to pray for her erring lover. Mephisto disappears into the earth.