A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their MusicKrehbiel, Henry Edward
History
A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music
Krehbiel, Henry Edward
Operas -- Stories, plots, etc.
The next five scenes in Berlioz's score are connected by M.
Gunsbourg and forced to act in sequence for the sake of the stage
set, in which a picture of Marguerite's chamber is presented in the
conventional fashion made necessary by the exigency of showing an
exterior and interior at the same time, as in the last act of
"Rigoletto." For a reason at which I cannot even guess, M. Gunsbourg
goes farther and transforms the chamber of Marguerite into a sort of
semi-enclosed arbor, and places a lantern in her hand instead of
the lamp, so that she may enter in safety from the street. In this
street there walk soldiers, followed by students, singing their
songs. Through them Faust finds his way and into the trellised
enclosure. The strains of the songs are heard at the last blended
in a single harmony. Marguerite enters through the street with her
lantern and sings the romance of the King of Thule, which Berlioz
calls a Chanson Gothique, one of the most original of his creations
and, like the song in the next scene, "L'amour l'ardente flamme,"
which takes the place of Goethe's "Meine Ruh' ist hin," is
steeped in a mood of mystical tenderness quite beyond description.
Méphistophétès summons will-o'-the-wisps to aid in the bewilderment
of the troubled mind of Marguerite. Here realism sadly disturbs the
scene as Berlioz asks that the fancy shall create it. The customary
dancing lights of the stage are supplemented with electrical effects
which are beautiful, if not new. They do not mar if they do not help
the grotesque minuet. But when M. Gunsbourg materializes the ghostly
flames and presents them as a mob of hopping figures, he throws
douches of cold water on the imagination of the listeners. Later he
spoils enjoyment of the music utterly by making it the accompaniment
of some utterly irrelevant pantomime by Marguerite, who goes into
the street and is seen writhing between the conflicting emotions of
love and duty, symbolized by a vision of Faust and the glowing of a
cross on the façade of a church. To learn the meaning of this, one
must go to the libretto, where he may read that it is all a dream
dreamed by Marguerite after she had fallen asleep in her arm-chair.
But we see her awake, not asleep, and it is all foolish and
disturbing stuff put in to fill time and connect two of Berlioz's
scenes. Marguerite returns to the room which she had left only in
her dream, Faust discovers himself, and there follows the inevitable
love-duet which Méphistophétès changes into a trio when he enters to
urge Faust to depart. Meanwhile, Marguerite's neighbors gather in
the street and warn Dame Martha of the misdeeds of Marguerite. The
next scene seems to have been devised only to give an environment to
Berlioz's paraphrase of Goethe's immortal song at the spinning-wheel.
From the distance is heard the fading song of the students and the
last echo of drums and trumpets sounding the retreat. Marguerite
rushes to the window, and, overcome, rather unaccountably, with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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