La damnation de Faust

The French composer was inspired by a translation of Goethe's dramatic poem Faust and produced a musical work that, like the masterpiece on which it is based, defies easy categorisation. Conceived at various times as a free-form oratorio and as an opera (Berlioz ultimately called it a "légende dramatique") its travelogue form and cosmic perspective have made it an extreme challenge to stage as an opera. Berlioz himself was eager to see the work staged, but once he did, he conceded that the production techniques of his time were not up to the task of bringing the work to dramatic life. Most of the work's fame has come through concert performances.

Berlioz read Goethe's Faust, Part One in 1828, in Gérard de Nerval's translation; "this marvellous book fascinated me from the first", he recalled in his Memoirs. "I could not put it down. I read it incessantly, at meals, in the theatre, in the street." He was so impressed that a suite entitled Eight Scenes from Faust became his Opus 1 (1829), though he later recalled all the copies of it he could find. He returned to the material in 1845, to make a larger work, with some additional text by Almire Gandonnière to Berlioz's specifications, that he first called a "concert opera", and as it expanded, finally a "dramatic legend".

He worked on the score during his concert tour of 1845, adding his own text for "Nature immense, impénétrable et fière"—Faust's climactic invocation of all nature—and incorporating the Rákóczi March, which had been a thunderous success at a concert in Pest, Hungary, on 15 February 1846.[3]

Its first performance at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, 6 December 1846, did not meet with critical acclaim, perhaps due to its halfway status between opera and cantata; the public was apathetic, and two performances (and a cancelled third) rendered a financial setback for Berlioz: "Nothing in my career as an artist wounded me more deeply than this unexpected indifference", he remembered.[4]

La damnation de Faust is performed regularly in concert halls, since its first successful complete performance in concert in Paris, in 1877; it is occasionally staged as an opera, for the first time in Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 18 February 1893, where it was produced by its director Raoul Gunsbourg with Jean de Reszke singing the role of Faust and Rose Caron, Marguerite. The Metropolitan Opera premiered it first in concert (2 February 1896) and then on stage (the United States stage premiere on 7 December 1906) and revived it in concert at Carnegie Hall on 10 November 1996 (repeated on tour in Tokyo the next year). The company presented a staged production on 7 November 2008, produced and directed by Robert Lepage, with innovative techniques of computer-generated stage imagery that responds to the performers' voices.[5] Filmmaker Terry Gilliam made his opera debut at London's English National Opera in May 2011, directing The Damnation of Faust.[6] The production received positive reviews in the British press.[7][8][9] In 2015 the Opéra National de Paris reimagined the role of Faust by assuming the persona of English scientist Stephen Hawking for that role. This version of the work also reinterpreted the metaphysical journey Faust is sent on by Méphistophélès in relation to the Mars One project; portraying the dilemma of man leaving earth to populate Mars.[10] The Paris Opera cooperated with NASA, ESA, CNES. and film companies which produce environmental films for the production of Berlioz's work.[11]

Three instrumental passages, the Marche Hongroise (Hungarian March), Ballet des sylphes, and Menuet des follets are sometimes extracted and performed as "Three Orchestral Pieces from La damnation de Faust."[12]

The orchestral score requires:[1]

• 3 flutes (all doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (two doubling English horn), 2 clarinets (in C/A/B♭), bass clarinet in B♭, 4 bassoons
• 4 horns (in all keys), 2 trumpets in C/D/F, 2 cornets in A/B♭, 3 trombones, 2 tubas (originally scored for one ophicleide and one tuba)
• timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, suspended cymbal, triangle, tamtam, bell (sounding D, F♯, A, or C)
• 2 harps[16]
• strings: 15 violins I, 15 violins II, 10 violas, 10 violoncellos, 9 double basses

Complete recordings include (vocal parts in order: Faust, Marguerite, Méphistophélès):

• The piece "L'Éléphant" (The Elephant) from Camille Saint-Saëns's The Carnival of the Animals (1886) uses a theme from the "Danse des sylphes", played on a double bass.

• La damnation de Faust: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• (in French) Libretto
• On Berlioz's Damnation of Faust by Jacques Barzun. Special Disc Jockey Pressing Recorded Autumn 1954
• La damnation de Faust 22. Februar – medici.TV – Orchestre National du Capitole – Wiener Singverein – Tugan Sokhiev