Charles Gounod Faust - Metropolitan Opera

Program Note CONTINUED
accumulating increasing popular acclaim along the way. Faust was revived in
Paris in 1862 for the inauguration of the Théâtre Lyrique’s new hall and proved a
massive success. After the 1869 production at the Opera, it went from success to
sensation, becoming the most frequently performed opera in Paris and holding
that position for a long time. By 1975 it had been given more than 2,000 times
at the Opera alone. Faust also took the rest of the world by storm, eventually
being translated into at least 25 languages, and was likely the most frequently
performed opera worldwide in the late 19th century.
It was no different in New York. On October 22, 1883, the Metropolitan Opera
opened its inaugural season with Faust. A decade later, when the house reopened
after a devastating fire had caused a dark season, Faust was again chosen as the
celebratory centerpiece. Since then, the company has presented more than 700
performances. And though the popularity of Gounod’s masterpiece has waned
somewhat in the last 50 years or so, it still claims a comfortable place in the heart
of the repertoire, seeing the stage more than any other French-language opera
save Bizet’s Carmen and Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
—Jay Goodwin
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