Performance dates: February 8, 13, 16, 19, 22 & 27

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

In his futile search for the meaning of life, the aging scholar Faust enters into a bargain with the devil: Méphistophélès buys his soul and promises him eternal youth and love. Faust falls in love with Marguerite but soon leaves her. After she kills their child, Marguerite descends into madness, but emerges from her encounter with Faust as the morally superior.

Of the numerous musical settings of the most famous subject in German literary history, the opera by the Frenchman Charles Gounod is probably the best known. In the 19th century, French opera developed a great fondness for German subjects, but often took a very free approach to adapting them into librettos. Indeed, the successful French librettist duo Michel Carré and Jules Barbier – authors of the text for Les Contes d'Hoffmann – transformed the original into a highly effective opera with a distinctive dramatic use of contrasts: drinking scenes are juxtaposed with intimate ballads, soldiers' choirs with supplications in church services. Thanks not least to its timeless arias, Gounod's Faust has become the most successful French opera after Georges Bizet's Carmen .

Musical direction Nathalie Stutzmann

Staging Lotte the Bear

Faust Jonathan Tetelman

Mephistopheles Kyle Ketelsen

Marguerite Olga Kulchynska