Faust
The Faust story has been inspiring artists–Marlowe, Berlioz, Liszt, Schumann, Wagner, Boito, Mann–for about 450 years. The original story seems to have been based on the life of Johannes Faust, a reputed magician who died shortly after Luther started the Protestant movement, making him roughly contemporary with the legendary mastersingers of Nuremberg. Faust’s life and leaguing with the devil appeared in Das Faustbuch, first published in 1587 and sometimes attributed to Faust himself. For the first 200 years the focus of this legend was on the deal with the devil, a subject of immense interest to the medieval mind. But during the enlightenment the emphasis began to shift; the devil was losing his grip on the imagination, and secular learning was on the upswing. By the mid-18th century Gotthold Lessing was emphasizing the nobility of learning and the idea of a philosophical reconciliation with God. The modifications of the legend culminated in Goethe’s poem, published in the early 19th century, the dawn of the Romantic era; here the possibility of redemption was the key factor.
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The orchestra was dull under the insipid conducting of John Nelson. The famed “Soldiers’ Chorus” came off as the “Soldiers’ Dirge.” If this is Nelson’s own reading of the score one must ask what planet he just came from. If he’s simply kowtowing to the director and designer, then he ought to start reading memoirs of conductors who had some spine.
