Several distinguished singers have been heard in this country in the rôle of Faust. It is doubtful if that beautiful lyric number, Faust's romance, "Salut! demeure chaste et pure" (Hail to the dwelling chaste and pure), ever has been delivered here with more exquisite vocal phrasing than by Campanini, who sang the Italian version, in which the romance becomes "Salve! dimora casta e pura." That was in the old Academy of Music days, with Christine Nilsson as Marguerite, which she had sung at the revival of the work by the Paris Grand Opéra. The more impassioned outbursts of the Faust rôle also were sung with fervid expression by Campanini, so great an artist, in the best Italian manner, that he had no Italian successor until Caruso appeared upon the scene.
Yet, in spite of the Faust of these two Italian artists, Jean de Reszke remains the ideal Faust of memory. With a personal appearance distinguished beyond that of any other operatic artist who has been heard here, an inborn chivalry of deportment that made him a lover after the heart of every woman, and a refinement of musical expression that clarified every rôle he undertook, his Faust was the most finished portrayal of that character in opera that has been heard here. Jean de Reszke's great distinction was that everything he did was in perfect taste. Haven't you seen Faust after Faust keep his hat on while making love to Marguerite? Jean de Reszke, a gentleman, removed his before ever he breathed of romance. Muratore is an admirable Faust, with all the refinements of phrasing and acting that characterize the best traditions of the Grand Opéra, Paris.
Great tenors do not, as a rule, arrive in quick succession. In this country we have had two distinct tenor eras and now are in a third. We had the era of Italo Campanini, from 1873 until his voice became impaired, about 1880. Not until eleven years later, 1891, did opera in America become so closely associated with another tenor, that there may be said to have begun the era of Jean de Reszke. It lasted until that artist's voluntary retirement. We are now in the era of Enrico Caruso, whose repertoire includes Faust in French.
Christine Nilsson, Adelina Patti, Melba, Eames, Calvé, have been among the famous Marguerites heard here. Nilsson and Eames may have seemed possessed of too much natural reserve for the rôle; but Gounod's librettists made Marguerite more refined than Goethe's Gretchen. Patti acted the part with great simplicity and sang it flawlessly. In fact her singing of the ballad "Il était un roi de Thulé" (There once was a king of Thule) was a perfect example of the artistically artless in song. It seemed to come from her lips merely because it chanced to be running through her head. Melba's type of beauty was somewhat mature for the impersonation of the character, but her voice lent itself beautifully to it. Calvé's Marguerite is recalled as a logically developed character from first note to last, and as one of the most original and interesting of Marguerites. But Americans insisted on Calvé's doing nothing but Carmen. When she sang in "Faust" she appeared to them a Carmen masquerading as Marguerite. So back to Carmen she had to go. Sembrich and Farrar are other Marguerites identified with the Metropolitan Opera House.
Plançon unquestionably was the finest Méphistophélès in the history of the opera in America up to the present time—vivid, sonorous, and satanically polished or fantastical, as the rôle demanded.
Gounod's librettists, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, with a true Gallic gift for practicable stage effect, did not seek to utilize the whole of Goethe's "Faust" for their book, but contented themselves with the love story of Faust and Marguerite, which also happens to have been entirely original with the author of the play, since it does not occur in the legends. But because the opera does not deal with the whole of "Faust," Germany, where Gounod's work enjoys great popularity, refuses to accept it under the same title as the play, and calls it "Margarethe" after the heroine.
As reconstructed for the Grand Opéra, where it was brought out ten years after its production at the Théâtre Lyrique, "Faust" develops as follows:
There is a brief prelude. A ff on a single note, then mysterious, chromatic chords, and then the melody which Gounod composed for Santley.
Act I. Faust's study. The philosopher is discovered alone, seated at a table on which an open tome lies before him. His lamp flickers in its socket. Night is about turning to dawn.
Faust despairs of solving the riddle of the universe. Aged, his pursuit of science vain, he seizes a flask of poison, pours it into a crystal goblet, and is about to drain it, when, day having dawned, the cheerful song of young women on their way to work arrests him. The song dies away. Again he raises the goblet, only to pause once more, as he hears a chorus of labourers, with whose voices those of the women unite. Faust, beside himself at these sounds of joy and youth, curses life and advancing age, and calls upon Satan to aid him.