over the entire world, where “Faust” is to-day, and long has been, considered a great masterpiece, and its author’s best work. “Faust” has been played in all countries and translated into all languages. It is one of the first French works which Italy, before then so hostile and impenetrable to French music, has applauded with a sort of furor. In Germany, where for a number of years Spohr’s “Faust” reigned supreme, it was received in a triumphal manner, and completely dethroned the latter. It excited enthusiasm, not only in Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Baden, Leipsic, Frankfort, Stuttgart and Darmstadt, not only in Milan, Rome, Venice, Naples, Florence, Genoa, Parma and Bologna, but in London, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Varsovie, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Brussels, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, etc., and even finally crossed the seas and became popular in the two Americas. It is perhaps the first work by a French composer which had such a rapid, complete and universal success. In Paris, “Faust” had been played more than four hundred times at the _Théâtre-Lyrique_ when the _Opéra_ signified a desire to appropriate it. The authors consented; but certain modifications were necessitated by this change of scene, and first of all the spoken dialogue had to be suppressed and replaced by recitatives. These changes effected, the work made its appearance at the _Opéra_ March 3, 1869, and there continued its successful career, counting five hundred performances in the space of eighteen years. The five hundredth was given on the 4th of November, 1887, and the six hundredth took place in the beginning of the year 1892, so that in Paris alone, “Faust” has already reached its thousandth performance. Such a success is without parallel in the annals of the theatre in France. [Illustration: CHARLES GOUNOD. Reproduction of an engraving made from a photograph in 1859, about the time of the first production of Faust, Gounod being then in his forty-first year. ]