Talk:Faust (opera)

'Authorship'

Given that Huebner's 1990 book refers to various autograph manuscripts (eg BN17724), he would have had to take dictation from the 'real' composer... Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 23:06, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Can those two paragraphs then be removed? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Personally I would get rid of it all as it is minor historical rumour. The Matheson stuff could go certainly. The Scholes perhaps in a footnote, particularly as in such a moderate article this section sticks out. The trivia also could possibly go. The BN acquired most of the autograph in 1977 (other bits in Stockholm, for instance) we kmow he composed ‘Avant de quitter ces lieux’ for Santley. The soldier’s chorus came from an unfinished Ivan le Terrible. According to Walsh, Harding claims that ‘Anges purs Anges radieux !’ comes from an early mass by Gounod of 1842. So until there is some evidence of theft, I don’t think it merits more than a footnote. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 19:09, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Wagner and Siebel

The cast box in the article informes that Siebel is a stuednt of Faust's and Wagner is a friend of Faust's. This is, however,information that originates from Goethe's book, not from the Opera's libretto. There is nothing in the libretto that says anything like this about those two characters. To avoid confusion the information in the cast box should either be edited so that it says where this information is from, or deleted completely. From the action one can infer that Wagner is a friend of Valentin, and Siebel has no other role as being an admirer of Marguerite. --Jidu Boite (talk) 08:11, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

That's not really true; Siebel appears with the soldiers and promises Valentin he will protect Marguérite. So it would seem that Siebel (in the opera) is a boy from Valentin and Marguérite's village who is too young to go to war.2.53.36.68 (talk) 13:46, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Where does it describe Wagner as a friend of Faust's? The role descriptions for Siébel as student of Faust and Wagner as friend of Valentin are given in Grove's article on Faust by Stephen Huebner. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:01, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Delibes wrote the ballet music?

From Léo Delibes:

• It has been suggested that Delibes also wrote the ballet music for Gounod's Faust which had been inserted ten years after the original performance of the opera.

References

Is this suggestion viewed seriously, and if so, don't we need to cover it in this article? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:49, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Not grand

2.53.36.68 (talk) is right I think, (and we should be grateful for his/her edit summary provided, unlike some editors), and it might have been better not to revert him a second time without discussing. If you look at page 6 of http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/a/ae/IMSLP327910-PMLP48987-Gounod_-_Faust_-_Acte_1.pdf there is no grand anywhere. Walsh in his Théâtre Lyrique book describes it as an opera and I cannot find the word grand in the chapter in Huebner's study of Gounod; while New Grove Opera calls it opéra, Kobbe (1958) and Kaminski also have no grand. So it would be more useful to have a list of reliable sources which call it an grand opera. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 16:25, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

The article grand opera explains how Faust became a grand opéra; ignoring or contradicting it here would be confusing. Bartlet's article on "Grand opéra" in Grove mentions Gounod twice. The definition is clear: "an epic or historical work in 4 or 5 acts, using large orchestra, the chorus and includes a ballet" (Grove). Huebner's article on Faust in Grove describes it as opéra, which, according to our article, includes grand opéra. Rudolf Kloiber in Handbuch der Oper describes it as "Original version: prelude and closed numbers, joined by dialogue; Grand opéra version: prelude and musical numbers joined by recitatives" (my translation). A libretto in English published in 1865 was titled Gounod's Grand Opera of 'Faust', as given by Lyster's Grand Opera Company; others include Faust: Grand Opera, in a Prologue and Four Acts; The Kellogg Grand English Opera (1874); Gounod's Grand Opera of Faust: as given by Cagli & Pompei's Royal Italian Opera Company (1871). The ROH described it in David McVicar's production as a "grand opera". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I think, the article should differenciate between the two versions. The first version was not a grand opéra. Instead it was based on the opéra comique tradition, but extends that clearly. Pipers Enzyklopädie des Musiktheaters contains a lengthy paragraph about the differences. The second version could really be described as grand opéra. --Rodomonte (talk) 08:21, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

When there are several versions, we need to decide how far we go in differentiating. Compare Fidelio, when the first version even has a different name, Leonore. The opera Faust commonly performed today has the characteristics of a grand opera and that should show. Carmen is another example of different versions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

The second version was first performed at the 3 March 1869 in the Salle de la rue Le Peletier of the Opéra Paris after the bancruptcy of the Théâtre Lyrique in 1868. It had to be adjusted for the needs of the Opéra, but several of the changes had already been made in earlier revisions. The dialogs were replaced by recitatives for a performance in Straßburg in april 1860. The Walpurgisnacht ballet and a couplet for Méphistophélès were added in 1869 (all according to Piper). --Rodomonte (talk) 09:14, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I am still very dubious. The article on 'grand opera' in the copy of New Grove Opera 1997 I have does not mention Faust (Gounod is mentioned very briefly in passing), so maybe you are referring to a different edition. Kellogs et al can easily be countered by: Stanford (http://opera.stanford.edu/Gounod/Faust/libretto_ne.html) and the Wikisource libretto, or indeed the ROH in 1983, which described it as an "opera". In his book on 'French Opera in the 19th Century', Hervé Lacombe writes on p19 "...revisions were normal at the time, and many works were transformed from one genre to another. Examples are Robert le Diable, conceived as an opera-comique but destined to be Meyerbeer's first grand opera: Faust, which began as an opéra-comique and was then recast as an opéra with music throughout" (note no 'grand'). I find it rather circular to argue that because a Wikipedia article on opéra includes grand opera, something described as an opéra can therefore be categorized as grand. At best one could argue that there is dissent among opera experts on whether it is a grand opera or just an opera in five acts. (By coincidence, Diapason in January (p46-47) had a feature on grand opera. Their ten recommendations were: Les Huguenots, Guillaume Tell, La Juive, La Esmeralda, Benvenuto Cellini, La Favorite, Rienzi, Le Prophete, Don Carlos, La Reine de Saba, Henri VIII...) My suggestion is to rewrite the opening line as follows: Faust is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part One. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859, with spoken dialogue, but was gradually revised for different productions in France and England in the 1860s and a ballet added for its entry to the Paris Opéra in 1869, after which it became famous around the world. It is sometimes referred to as a grand opera. PS. The statement in the article "Faust was not initially well received." is wrong as well. Cg2p0B0u8m (talk) 22:49, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Your suggestion for the introduction is ok for me. And according to Piper the opera was a great success from the beginning. --Rodomonte (talk) 10:13, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Unsourced items that were in "In other art forms" section

Unsourced trivia should not be in article space. If anyone wants to re-add any of the following, please only do so while providing a source.

Parts of the opera have seeped into popular culture in Europe over more than a century.

The opera was very popular in the United States, a fact to which Edith Wharton makes great reference in her novel The Age of Innocence. Wharton's novel opens at the New York Academy of Music during the end of the second act of the opera, when Christina Nilsson is singing the "Daisy Song".

The Argentinian author Estanislao del Campo wrote a satirical poem, Fausto (1866), which describes a gaucho's impressions during the performance of Gounod's opera.

A performance of the opera is part of the story of Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera and appears in some film adaptations including the 1925 version. Irene Dunne performs the "Jewel Song" in the film Stingaree (1934) and Jeanette MacDonald performs several scenes from the opera in San Francisco (1936), complete with costumes, sets and orchestra.

There are very short extracts from the words to the "Jewel Song" in several stories in The Adventures of Tintin. In this series of comic strips, Tintin and his sidekick, Captain Haddock, often encounter a bombastic opera singer called Bianca Castafiore, of a more than passing resemblance to a later (1882) eminent Marguerite, Emma Calvé. Her trademark is the jewel song, which she always sings at high volume, never saying more than Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir or a few words more from other lines. The entire Tintin story The Castafiore Emerald (original title: La Castafiore's Jewels) derives from this running gag.

Siébel's aria, "Faites-lui mes aveux" from act 3 of the opera is quoted twice ("Tell her, oh flower") by Dorn in act 2 of Chekhov's play, The Seagull. The same song is used as the basis for Ravel's piano piece À la manière de Chabrier, in which the song by Gounod is rendered in the style of a composer much admired by Ravel.

In Thomas Mann's novel, The Magic Mountain, Hans Castorp plays "Valentin's Prayer" in the chapter Highly Questionable.

In Germaine Dulac's 1923 film La Souriante Madame Beudet (The Smiling Madame Beudet), the protagonist, an unhappy wife virtually imprisoned in the apartment above her much older husband's drapery store, stays home while her husband and his friends go to see a local production of Gounod's Faust, which is seen as representing everything oppressive, patriarchal, and belonging to the culture of the previous century. The wife's own musical preferences lay with the more modernist Claude Debussy, whose "Jardins sous la pluie" (Gardens in the Rain), she plays on her upright piano—until her husband locks the keyboard.Smeat75 (talk) 00:43, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 11 July 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. No consensus to move the page after 10 days. (non-admin closure) © Tbhotch^™ (en-2.5). 18:21, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

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Faust (opera) → Faust (Gounod) – WP:DISAMBIGUATION, cf. Faust (Spohr). However no objection to leaving a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT in place for people who don't know the composer, and don't know that there's a second opera. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. I see no need to change after both names are establishd for years. Gounod's work seems the work of which people think first when looking for an opera named Faust. Similar case: Lohengrin (opera) and Lohengrin (Sciarrino), Wagner's work being much better known than the other, and no need to treat them the same. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:03, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Lohengrin (opera) and Lohengrin (Sciarrino) are also wrong, sadly. RM there too if needs must. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per Gerda and WikiProject Opera guidelines. This is a long-standing with 100s of incoming links. Once again, disambiguators are not explanatory notes. At most simply use a hatnote. Voceditenore (talk) 16:46, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose – Lohengrin (opera) was closed as "not moved"; so should this. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:10, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.