Chapter 25

find Margherita strolling arm in arm with Faust, and Martha with Mefistofele. The gossip is trying to seduce the devil into an avowal of love; Margherita and Faust are discussing their first meeting and the passion which they already feel for each other. Boito's Margherita has more of Goethe's Gretchen than Gounod's Marguerite. Like the former, she wonders what a cavalier can find to admire in her simple self, and protests in embarrassment when Faust (or Enrico, as he calls himself) kisses her rough hand. Like Goethe's maiden, too, she is concerned about the religious beliefs of her lover, and Boito's Faust answers, like Goethe's Faust, that a sincere man dares protest neither belief nor unbelief in God. Nature, Love, Mystery, Life, God--all are one, all to be experienced, not labelled with a name. Then he turns the talk on herself and her domestic surroundings, and presses the sleeping potion for her mother upon her. The scene ends with the four people scurrying about in a double chase among the flowers, for which Boito found exquisitely dainty music.

There is a change from the pretty garden of the first scene, with its idyllic music, to the gathering place of witches and warlocks, high up in the Brocken, in the second. We witness the vile orgies of the bestial crew into whose circles Faust is introduced, and see how Mefistofele is acclaimed king and receives the homage. Here Boito borrows a poetical conceit from Goethe's scene in the witches' kitchen, and makes it a vehicle for a further exposition of the character and philosophy of the devil. Mefistofele has seated himself upon a rocky throne and been vested with the robe and symbols of state by the witches. Now they bring to him a crystal globe, which he takes and discourses upon to the following effect (the translation is Theodore T. Barker's):--

Lo, here is the world! A bright sphere rising, Setting, whirling, glancing, Round the sun in circles dancing; Trembling, toiling, Yielding, spoiling, Want and plenty by turn enfold it-- This world, behold it! On its surface, by time abraded, Dwelleth a vile race, defiled, degraded; Abject, haughty, Cunning, naughty, Carrying war and desolation From the top to the foundation Of creation. For them Satan has no being; They scorn with laughter A hell hereafter, And heavenly glory As idle story. Powers eternal! I'll join their laugh infernal Thinking o'er their deeds diurnal. Ha! Ha! Behold the world!

He dashes the globe to pieces on the ground and thereby sets the witches to dancing. To the antics of the vile crew Faust gives no heed; his eyes are fixed upon a vision of Margherita, her feet in fetters, her body emaciated, and a crimson line encircling her throat. His love has come under the headsman's axe! In the Ride to Hell, which concludes Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust," the infernal horsemen are greeted with shouts in a language which the mystical Swedenborg says is the speech of the lower regions. Boito also uses an infernal vocabulary. His witches screech "Saboé har Sabbah!" on the authority of Le Loyer's "Les Spectres."

From the bestiality of the Brocken we are plunged at the beginning of the third act into the pathos of Margherita's death. The episode follows the lines laid down by Barbier and Carré in their paraphrase of Goethe, except that for the sake of the beautiful music of the duet (which Boito borrowed from his unfinished "Ero e Leandro"), we learn that Margherita had drowned her child. Faust urges her to fly, but her poor mind is all awry. She recalls the scene of their first meeting and of the love-making in Dame Martha's garden, and the earlier music returns, as it does in Gounod's score, and as it was bound to do. At the end she draws back in horror from Faust, after uttering a prayer above the music of the celestial choir, just as the executioner appears. Mefistofele pronounces her damned, but voices from on high proclaim her salvation.

The story of Faust and Margherita is ended, but, in pursuance of his larger plan, already outlined here, Boito makes use of two scenes from the second part of Goethe's drama to fill a fourth act and epilogue. They tell of the adventure of Faust with Helen of Troy, and of his death and the demon's defeat. The "Night of the Classical Sabbath" serves a dramatic purpose even less than the scene on the Brocken, but as an intermezzo it has many elements of beauty, and its scheme is profoundly poetical. Unfortunately we can only attain to a knowledge of the mission of the scene in the study with Goethe's poem in hand and commentaries and Boito's prefatory notes within reach. The picture is full of serene loveliness. We are on the shore of Peneus, in the Vale of Tempe. The moon at its zenith sheds its light over the thicket of laurel and oleanders, and floods a Doric temple on the left. Helen of Troy and Pantalis, surrounded by a group of sirens, praise the beauty of nature in an exquisite duet, which flows on as placidly as the burnished stream. Faust lies sleeping upon a flowery bank, and in his dreams calls upon Helen in the intervals of her song. Helen and Pantalis depart, and Faust is ushered in by Mefistofele. He is clad in his proper mediaeval garb, in strong contrast to the classic robes of the denizens of the valley in Thessaly. Mefistofele suggests to Faust that they now separate; the land of antique fable has no charm for him. Faust is breathing in the idiom of Helen's song like a delicate perfume which inspires him with love; Mefistofele longs for the strong, resinous odors of the Harz Mountains, where dominion over the Northern hags belongs to him. Faust is already gone, and he is about to depart when there approaches a band of Choretids. With gentle grace they move through a Grecian dance, and Mefistofele retires in disgust. Helen returns profoundly disquieted by a vision of the destruction of Troy, of which she was the cause. The Choretids seek to calm her in vain, but the tortures of conscience cease when she sees Faust before her. He kneels and praises her beauty, and she confesses herself enamoured of his speech, in which sound answers sound like a soft echo. "What," she asks, "must I do to learn so sweet and gentle an idiom?" "Love me, as I love you," replies Faust, in effect, as they disappear through the bowers. Now let us turn to Goethe, his commentators, and Boito's explanatory notes to learn the deeper significance of the episode, which, with all its gracious charm, must still appear dramatically impertinent and disturbing. Rhyme was unknown to the Greeks, the music of whose verse came from syllabic quantity. Helen and her companions sing in classic strain, as witness the opening duet:--

La luna immobile innonda l'etere d'un raggio pallido. Callido balsamo stillan le ramora dai cespi roridi; Doridi e silfidi, cigni e nereidi vagan sul l'alighi.

Faust addresses Helen in rhyme, the discovery of the Romantic poets:--

Forma ideal purissima Della bellezza eterna! Un uom ti si prosterna Innamorato al suolo Volgi ver me la cruna Di tua pupilla bruna, Vaga come la luna, Ardente come il sole.

"Here," says Boito, "is a myth both beautiful and deep. Helen and Faust represent Classic and Romantic art gloriously wedded, Greek beauty and Germanic beauty gleaming under the same aureole, glorified in one embrace, and generating an ideal poesy, eclectic, new, and powerful."

The contents of the last act, which shows us Faust's death and salvation, have been set forth in the explanation of Boito's philosophical purpose. An expository note may, however, profitably be added in the poet-composer's own words: "Goethe places around Faust at the beginning of the scene four ghostly figures, who utter strange and obscure words. What Goethe has placed on the stage we place in the orchestra, submitting sounds instead of words, in order to render more incorporeal and impalpable the hallucinations that trouble Faust on the brink of death." The ghostly figures referred to by Boito are the four "Gray Women" of Goethe--Want, Guilt, Care, and Necessity. Boito thinks like a symphonist, and his purpose is profoundly poetical, but its appreciation asks more than the ordinary opera-goer is willing or able to give. {2}

Footnotes:

{1} I like, at times, to hear the Ancient's word, And have a care to be most civil: It's really kind of such a noble Lord So humnanly to gossip with the Devil. --Bayard Taylor's Translation.

{2} "Mefistofele" had its first performance in New York at the Academy of Music on November 24, 1880. Mlle. Valleria was the Margherita and Elena, Miss Annie Louise Cary the Marta and Pantalis, Signor Campanini Faust, and Signor Novara Mefistofele. Signor Arditi conducted. The first representation of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera-house took place on December 5, 1883, when, with one exception, the cast was the same as at the first performance in London, at Her Majesty's Theatre, on July 6, 1880--namely, Nilsson as Margherita and Elena, Trebelli as Marta and Pantalis, Campanini as Faust and Mirabella as Mefistofele. (In London Nannetti enacted the demon.) Cleofonte Campanini, then maestro di cembalo at the Metropolitan Opera-house, conducted the performance.