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.
MARTHA
Comic Opera in four acts by FLOTOW.
Text by W. FRIEDRICH.
This charming opera finally established the renown of its composer, who had first found his way to public favor through "Stradella".—It ranks high among our comic operas, and has become as much liked as those of Lortzing and Nicolai.
Not the least of its merits lies in the text, which Friedrich worked out dexterously, and which is amusing and interesting throughout.
Lady Harriet Durham, tired of the pleasures and splendours of Court, determines to seek elsewhere for a pastime, and hoping to find it in a sphere different from her own, disguises herself and her confidant Nancy as peasant-girls, in which garb they visit the Fair at Richmond, accompanied by Lord Tristan, who is hopelessly enamoured of Lady Harriet and unwillingly complies with her wish to escort them to the adventure in the attire of a peasant.—They join the servant-girls, who are there to seek employment, and are hired by a tenant Plumkett and his foster-brother Lionel, a youth of somewhat extraordinary behaviour, his air being noble and melancholy and much too refined for a country-squire, while the other, though somewhat rough, is frank and jolly in his manner.
The disguised ladies take the handsel from them, without knowing that they are bound by it, until the sheriff arrives to confirm the bargain. Now the joke becomes reality and they hear that they are actually hired as servants for a whole year.
Notwithstanding Lord Tristan's protestations, the ladies are carried off by their masters, who know them under the names of Martha and Julia.