An opera with a Prologue, four Acts and an epilogue. Libretto and music by Arrigo Boito [1842 – 1918]. Premiere at La Scala Milan, 5 March 1868. Revised version, Bologna 1875. Text based on Goethe’s Faust. Arturo Toscanini championed both this opera and Boito’s only other opera Nerone [Nero] conducting the premiere of Nerone at La Scala in 1924. Toscanini also included the Prologue to Mefistofele in many concerts as a stand alone piece.

Synopsis

The Prologue in Heaven opens with magnificent celestial panoply. The Prelude, with its trumpet fanfares, thunderous percussion, sumptuous brass and angelic harps, transports the listener into the very courts of Heaven itself. Invisible behind clouds of star dust, the Celestial Host hails the 'Lord God of angels and of saints' [Ave, Signor degli angeli e dei santi.']. Hardly has the great paean ceased when, of all things, an impudent, ironic little scherzo announces the presence of Mephistopheles. Sardonically echoing the angels' 'Ave Signor' he addresses himself directly to the Almighty in the tones of long-standing familiarity. He has come to make a complaint. Excusing himself for his lowly style of speech and the absence of a halo, he expresses his disgruntlement over the degeneration of man: this overweening atom is now so enfeebled by his slate of benighted confusion as to be no longer worth tempting, he grumbles. The Chorus Mysticus, transmitting the thought of the Lord, asks him: Do you know Faust? [‘T’e noto Faust?']. He replies that he does and wagers that he will land him in his net. His challenge is accepted. The appearance of the cherubim, whom Mephistopheles loathes, prompts the Tempter's disappearance, and choirs of penitents (their voices rising from the earth) Join with the celestial host and the cherubim in another great hymn.

Act 1

Act I takes place on Easter Sunday in Frankfurt. A happy holiday crowd mills around, chatting, drinking and watching the Elector’s procession as it passes. Meanwhile a grey friar passes among them, attracting reverence from some but a strange antipathy from others. Faust and his pupil Wagner are also out enjoying the holiday, and as the crowd disperses temporarily to follow the procession, Faust expresses his delight at the signs of the return of spring [‘Al soave raggiar di primavera’]. As the crowd returns, the two scholars retire to a distance. The townspeople engage in a spirited dance, but as daylight fades, they leave Faust and Wagner once more alone. The evening mists begin to form and Wagner suggests that they go home. But Faust's attention has been engaged by the reappearance of the grey friar, who seems, by his curiously winding progression, to be drawing an in visible coil around the two watchers; and, even more curiously, Faust fancies that he can see tongues of flame spurting in his footsteps. Wagner is incredulous; the figure is that of an ordinary mendicant friar, he insists. Leaving the mystery unsolved, Faust and Wagner turn for home. Back in his study, Faust, his spirits calmed by his country walk and his soul filled with love of God, prepares to study the Gospel ['Dai campi, dai prati’]. He is disturbed by a sudden howl followed by the emergence from a dark corner of the grey friar who had made such a sinister impression on him a short while ago. His knowledge of the occult enables him to threaten the now blatantly supernatural apparition with the Key of Solomon, upon which the grey friar disappears and Mephistopheles, in the guise of a gentleman, appears in his stead. Faust recognizes him yet probes his identity and elicits the great statement of satanic negation: 'Sono lo spirito che nega semper tutti’; [The spirit I that aye denies everything]. The grim harangue, interspersed with the piercing whistles of supreme braggartism, provokes Faust's curiosity rather than fear or disgust, and he willingly accepts the idea of a Pact by which Mephistopheles would serve him in this life in exchange for a reversal of roles in the next. Faust imposes a condition, however: His soul will not be forfeit unless Mephistopheles can still the craving of his spirit to the extent that he will say to the fleeting moment "Remain, for thou art fair." The condition accepted, the Pact is sealed with a handshake and celebrated with a jolly little capering ditty for the two of them ['Fin da stanotte'] before Mephistopheles whisks Faust away on his cloak.

Act II

Act II finds Faust enamoured of a simple village girl, Margareta. Strolling with her in the garden — while Mephistopheles passes the lime by paying ribald court to Martha, Margareta's friend and neighbour — he fascinates her with his air of distinction, his ardour and his gentleness, and then, having turned her head completely, makes an assignation with her for a night of love to be facilitated by her administering a sleeping draught (which he has at the ready) to her mother.

Time passes. Faust has abandoned Margareta and now accompanies Mephistopheles to the Witches' Sabbath. Together they ascend the Brocken, Mephistopheles urging his' protégé forward ['Su Cammina, cammina, cammina'] to the place where the witches and warlocks are foregathering. Once among them, Mephistopheles is accorded the respect and obeisance due to him as the King of Darkness. His subjects fashion a shining globe for him, a symbol of the world, which it holds aloft like a bauble ['Ecco il mondo'], mocking its beauty and denigrating the proud, false race that the earth supports until, in an access of derisive laughter, he hurls it to the ground, smashing it into tiny splinters. The witches and warlocks express their entire satisfaction with a dance ['Riddiamo Riddiamo']. Faust is now assailed by a vision [Stupor! Stupor!] which seems to be of Margareta — with a strange red line around her neck. Mephistopheles convinces him that it is an apparition of the Medusa. The witches and warlocks continue their revels.

Act III

Faust's fears inspired by the vision of Margareta have proved to be well-founded. The simple village maid that he had seduced and abandoned is in prison, condemned to death for having poisoned her mother with the sleeping draught supplied by Faust and for having murdered her new-born infant. Lying on her pallet in the prison cell, her mind wandering, she muses over these, to her incomprehensible, accusations and the gloom of her surroundings from which her spirit seeks to fly like a bird ['L’altra notte in fondo al mare']. Faust arrives at the prison door with Mephistopheles whom he has persuaded to help him in an attempt to rescue the unhappy girl. To begin with, Margareta does not even recognize her former lover, and then, when she does, still cannot understand that she is to leave the prison, although she is willing enough to join him in a beautiful daydream of freedom and happiness ['Lontano, lontano, lontano']. The dream is broken as Mephistopheles, anxious about the delay, steps in to urge haste. Margareta immediately knows him for who he is, and, though terrified by the thought of her impending death, resists the temptation of a love she now intuitively knows to be tainted with unutterable evil. Commending herself lo divine forgiveness, she turns from Faust in disgust and the Celestial Host announces her redemption as she sinks to the ground. Faust and Mephistopheles disappear.

Act IV

Mephistopheles has now transported Faust to Classical Greece. In a night of intoxicating beauty on the shores of the River Peneus, Helen and Panthalis, their boat of silver and mother of pearl clustered about by water-nymphs, sing dreamily of the loveliness around them [La luna immobile innonda l’etere d’un raggio pallido]. Faust, rapt in wonder, murmurs Elena, Elena, Elena, but Mephislopheles is ill at ease and homesick for his shaggy Harz Mountains and his northern witches. He leaves. Helen becomes absorbed by visions other fatal past [Notte cupa, truce, senza fine funebre] until Faust approaches her, magnificently attired as a Fifteenth-Century knight, and woos her as the ideal of eternal Beauty [Forma ideal, purissima della Bellezza eterna!]. She responds immediately to his ardent courtship while not only her attendant nymphs but Mephistopheles too (whose curiosity has drawn him back to the scene) look on in wonder and admiration- Helen is enchanted both by Faust himself and by his speech, which contains rhyme, unknown to Greek poets. She catches the habit from him and joins him in an ecstatic duel before they disappear together into an idyll of love.

Epilogue

Faust is again in his study, alone but for the unacknowledged presence of Mephistopheles. He muses on the past and his failure to find his heart's desire either in the world of reality or in that of illusion, and Mephistopheles, seeing defeat staring him in the face, tries to prod his victim into yielding to the old temptations. But Faust gives no sign of having even heard him. He rejects both the Real and the Ideal ['Ogni mortal mister gustai'] and turns instead to a vision of himself as a benefactor of humanity ['Giunto sul passo estremo'], dispensing a wise law to a happy and prosperous people. With his growing desperation, Mephistopheles' attempts to recapture his prey become wilder and wilder, but Faust, cocooned in his beatific vision, is beyond his reach, and as the triumphal strains of the Heavenly Host are once more heard ['Ave Signor'] Faust at last utters the words which would have delivered him to Hell had they been elicited by Mephistopheles' wiles and not by the prompting of Goodness: ['Arrestati, sei bello'] (Remain for thou art fair') and clasps the Gospel to him. A final, impassioned plea for deliverance from his 'mocking demon' and from all temptation, and Faust expires, the heavenly vision before his eyes. Mephistopheles is left writhing in frustration, scorched by the hail of roses that descends upon the body of Faust, shrivelled by the light, but still whistling in defiance as he sinks beneath the ground, utterly defeated — though not, of course, for long.

Avril Bardoni