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 March 19, 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
Theatre 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 afterward
she was succeeded by Nilsson, who invested the part with a poetry and
tenderness which have never been quite equaled.
"Faust" was received at Berlin, Vienna, Milan, St. Petersburg, and
London, with an enthusiasm not less than that which greeted its Parisian
début. The clamor 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 color. 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.*
* It has been a matter of frequent comment by the ablest
musical critics that many noble operas, now never heard,
would have retained their place in the repertoires of modern
dramatic music, had it not been for the utter rubbish to
which the music has been set.
Many numbers of this fine work, however, are still favorites 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. Frederic 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 favorites, 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 favorite 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 recognized 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, a "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 Theatre 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 color, but yet solemnized at times by
an exaltation which recalls the time when as a youth he thought of the
spiritual dignity of the 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 colors the music with a
novel fascination, but amounts to an interesting psychological problem.