The year of his triumph had at last arrived. He had waited and toiled
for years over "Faust," and it was now ready to flash on the world
with an electric brightness that was to make his name instantly
famous. One day saw him an obscure, third-rate composer, the next one
of the brilliant names in art. "Faust," first performed 19th March
1859, fairly took the world by storm. Gounod's warmest friends were
amazed by the beauty of the masterpiece, in which exquisite melody,
great orchestration, and a dramatic passion never surpassed in
operatic art, were combined with a scientific skill and precision
which would vie with that of the great masters of harmony. Carvalho,
the manager of the Théâtre Lyrique, had predicted that the work would
have a magnificent reception by the art world, and lavished on it
every stage resource. Madame Miolan-Carvalho, his brilliant wife, one
of the leading sopranos of the day, sang the rôle of the heroine,
though five years afterwards she was succeeded by Nilsson, who
invested the part with a poetry and tenderness which have never been
quite equalled.
"Faust" was received at Berlin, Vienna, Milan, St. Petersburg, and
London, with an enthusiasm not less than that which greeted its
Parisian début. The clamour of dispute between the different schools
was for the moment hushed in the delight with which the musical
critics and public of universal Europe listened to the magical
measures of an opera which to classical chasteness and severity of
form and elevation of motive united such dramatic passion, richness of
melody, and warmth of orchestral colour. From that day to the present
"Faust" has retained its place as not only the greatest but the most
popular of modern operas. The proof of the composer's skill and sense
of symmetry in the composition of "Faust" is shown in the fact that
each part is so nearly necessary to the work, that but few "cuts" can
be made in presentation without essentially marring the beauty of the
work; and it is therefore given with close faithfulness to the
author's score.
After the immense success of "Faust," the doors of the Academy were
opened wide to Gounod. On February 28, 1862, the "Reine de Saba" was
produced, but was only a _succès d'estime_, the libretto by Gérard de
Nerval not being fitted for a lyric tragedy.[S] Many numbers of this
fine work, however, are still favourites on concert programmes, and it
has been given in English under the name of "Irene." Gounod's love of
romantic themes, and the interest in France which Lamartine's glowing
eulogies had excited about "Mireio," the beautiful national poem of
the Provençal, M. Frédéric Mistral, led the former to compose an opera
on a libretto from this work, which was given at the Théâtre Lyrique,
March 19, 1864, under the name of "Mireille." The music, however, was
rather descriptive and lyric than dramatic, as befitted this lovely
ideal of early French provincial life; and in spite of its containing
some of the most captivating airs ever written, and the fine
interpretation of the heroine by Miolan-Carvalho, it was accepted with
reservations. It has since become more popular in its three-act form
to which it was abridged. It is a tribute to the essential beauty of
Gounod's music that, however unsuccessful as operas certain of his
works have been, they have all contributed charming _morceaux_ for the
enjoyment of concert audiences. Not only did the airs of "Mireille"
become public favourites, but its overture is frequently given as a
distinct orchestral work.
The opera of "La Colombe," known in English as "The Pet Dove,"
followed in 1866; and the next year was produced the five-act opera of
"Roméo et Juliette," of which the principal part was again taken by
Madame Miolan-Carvalho. The favourite pieces in this work, which is a
highly poetic rendering of Shakespeare's romantic tragedy, are the
song of _Queen Mab_, the garden duet, a short chorus in the second
act, and the duel scene in the third act. For some occult reason,
"Roméo et Juliette," though recognised as a work of exceptional beauty
and merit, and still occasionally performed, has no permanent hold on
the operatic public of to-day.
The evils that fell on France from the German war and the horrors of
the Commune drove Gounod to reside in London, unlike Auber, who
resolutely refused to forsake the city of his love, in spite of the
suffering and privation which he foresaw, and which were the indirect
cause of the veteran composer's death. Gounod remained several years
in England, and lived a retired life, seemingly as if he shrank from
public notice and disdained public applause. His principal appearances
were at the Philharmonic, the Crystal Palace, and at Mrs. Weldon's
concerts, where he directed the performances of his own compositions.
The circumstances of his London residence seem to have cast a cloud
over Gounod's life and to have strangely unsettled his mind. Patriotic
grief probably had something to do with this at the outset. But even
more than this as a source of permanent irritation may be reckoned the
spell cast over Gounod's mind by a beautiful adventuress, who was
ambitious to attain social and musical recognition through the _éclat_
of the great composer's friendship. Though newspaper report may be
credited with swelling and distorting the naked facts, enough appears
to be known to make it sure that the evil genius of Gounod's London
life was a woman, who traded recklessly with her own reputation and
the French composer's fame.
However untoward the surroundings of Gounod, his genius did not lie
altogether dormant during this period of friction and fretfulness,
conditions so repressive to the best imaginative work. He composed
several masses and other church music; a "Stabat Mater" with
orchestra; the oratorio of "Tobie"; "Gallia," a lamentation for
France; incidental music for Legouvé's tragedy of "Les Deux Reines,"
and for Jules Barbier's "Jeanne d'Arc;" a large number of songs and
romances, both sacred and secular, such as "Nazareth," and "There is a
Green Hill;" and orchestral works, "Salterello in A," and the "Funeral
March of a Marionette."
At last he broke loose from the bonds of Delilah, and, remembering
that he had been elected to fill the place of Clapisson in the
Institute, he returned to Paris in 1876 to resume the position which
his genius so richly deserved. On the 5th of March of the following
year his "Cinq-Mars" was brought out at the Théâtre de l'Opéra
Comique; but it showed the traces of the haste and carelessness with
which it was written, and therefore commanded little more than a
respectful hearing. His last opera, "Polyeucte," produced at the Grand
Opera, October 7, 1878, though credited with much beautiful music, and
nobly orchestrated, is not regarded by the French critics as likely to
add anything to the reputation of the composer of "Faust." Gounod,
now at the age of sixty, if we judge him by the prolonged fertility of
so many of the great composers, may be regarded as not having largely
passed the prime of his powers. The world still has a right to expect
much from his genius. Conceded even by his opponents to be a great
musician and a thorough master of the orchestra, more generous critics
in the main agree to rank Gounod as the most remarkable contemporary
composer, with the possible exception of Richard Wagner. The
distinctive trait of his dramatic conceptions seems to be an
imagination hovering between sensuous images and mystic dreams.
Originally inspired by the severe Greek sculpture of Gluck's music, he
has applied that master's laws in the creation of tone-pictures full
of voluptuous colour, but yet solemnised at times by an exaltation
which recalls the time when as a youth he thought of the spiritual
dignity of priesthood. The use he makes of his religious reminiscences
is familiarly illustrated in "Faust." The contrast between two
opposing principles is marked in all of Gounod's dramatic works, and
in "Faust" this struggle of "a soul which invades mysticism and which
still seeks to express voluptuousness" not only colours the music with
a novel fascination, but amounts to an interesting psychological
problem.