Gounod's Faust
About This Event
Charles Gounod, a 19th-century French composer whose operas — notably Faust and Roméo et Juliette — helped define grand opera and lyric drama, favored long-breathed melody and clear vocal architecture over orchestral showmanship. Amore Opera presents Gounod’s Faust; the company has mounted fully orchestrated stagings of the work, a repertory touchstone in which the vocal writing drives the drama.
About Faust(opera)
Neil Mackenzie / NZOpera
Charles Gounod’s *Faust* (1859) reworks Goethe’s tale into a five-act French grand opera, centering on a scholar’s bargain with the devil and the collateral damage it leaves in Marguerite’s life. In New York, the piece has long held repertory weight, with the Metropolitan Opera presenting it early in the company’s history and returning to it across eras. At Berlin, Amore Opera frames the story through F. W. Murnau’s silent *Faust*, paired with a newly composed live score by Igor Yachmenov, treating image, movement, and sound as interlocked dramaturgy. One clear takeaway: this material endures because it refuses to separate private desire from public consequence.
About the Artist
Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod was a French composer whose stage works helped define grand opera and lyric drama in the 19th century. His catalogue includes twelve operas, with *Faust* and *Roméo et Juliette* remaining repertory touchstones, alongside a substantial body of sacred music and art song.