Sunday Classics preview: In which we tune into the sound world of Gounod's "Faust," via Faust's aria

For next season's new production of Faust at the Met: "Tony Award-winning director Des McAnuff updates the story to the first half of the 20th century with a production that won praise in London last season." (To view the promo clip, go to this link.)

by Ken

You may recall that we have unfinished business with our seemingly endless ongoing Valerie Masterson project: We were going to hear her sing a bit of Marguerite in Gounod's Faust. By coincidence, the Met has just announced its 2011-12 season, which is to include a "new" (by way of Covent Garden) production of the opera, "updated to the first half of the 20th century," as noted above.

Now I'm not saying that this updating can't work -- there are too many issues involved to warrant any assumptions. I'm just suggesting that the participants are either ignoring or trying to finesse, presumably for the benefit of Romantic-resistant modern audiences, the era of the music, which is High Romantic grand opera. I feel strongly that such music can speak to a contemporary audience as powerfully as it ever did, but I think there's a problem in pretending that it is other than what it is. Which is why I thought we'd push Valerie M's Marguerite back to tomorrow night and Sunday's main post, and start by hearing how, proximately, we get to the big solo scene we'll hear tomorrow night, in the Garden Scene of Act III, set outside the humble little house where Marguerite has grown up and lives.

So tonight we're going to hear Faust sing to that house, "chaste and pure," in the ravishing and extremely hard to sing tenor aria "Salut, demeure chaste et pure." I think we may actually hear some of the opera's opening scene, in which we witness poor old Dr. Faust make his bargain with the Devil -- his soul in exchange for the magic of youth. The deal-clincher is the image Méphistophélès conjures of the ravishing, pure maiden Marguerite.

The rejuvenated Faust's first effort to woo the maiden not having accomplished much, Méphisto brings him to this humble dwelling, with a diabolical game plan we'll learn more about tomorrow night. In "Salut, demeure," Faust isn't exactly the confident romantic conquistador. For starters we're going to hear just the aria, shorn of its gorgeous introductory recitative, sung by perhaps the greatest Faust of the era of recordings, Caruso. Faust was one of the great roles of his early career, and he actually recorded a fair amount of it on early 78s, mostly in 1906. Unfortunately a 78 side could accommodate only the aria, and the recitative is too brief to have warranted stretching to a second side, so Caruso recorded only the aria.

GOUNOD: Faust: Act III, Aria, Faust, "Salut, demeure chaste et pure"

Hail, chaste and pure dwelling,
Where can be felt the presence
of an innocent and divine soul.
What richness in this poverty!
In this hideaway, what felicity!
What richness in this poverty!
In this hideaway, what felicity!

O nature!
It's there that you made her so beautiful.
It's there that this child slept under your wing,
grew up under your eyes.
There that, your breath
enveloping her soul,
with love you made
the woman blossom
into this angel of the heavens!

Hail, chaste and pure dwelling &c.

Enrico Caruso (t), Faust; orchestra. Victor, recorded Feb. 13, 1906


TO HEAR FAUST'S RECITATIVE AND ARIA SUNG
BY A GALAXY OF STARRY TENORS, CLICK HERE.

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