FAUST Comes to the Paris Opera Next Month

Selling his soul to the devil for eternal youth is Faust’s – inevitably risky – gamble. By joining forces with the diabolical Mephistopheles, the elderly scholar recovers a youthfulness that allows him to win over the beautiful Marguerite, but at what cost???

When Charles Gounod set to work on the myth made famous by Goethe, he had not yet known any true success. The melodic invention and dramatic intensity of his Faust, premiered in 1859 at the Théâtre Lyrique, changed all that. Although Carré and Barbier’s libretto focused more on Marguerite’s fall and redemption than on the hero’s metaphysical dimension, this did not prevent the work from becoming a national monument, inspiring even Hergé, whose Castafiore sings the famous “Jewel song”. 

Tobias Kratzer’s staging, with its spectacular videos, conjures up a contemporary Paris, a grandiose setting and a place of iniquity for young people struggling with their inner fears.