Background
This is one of many musical works in 19th century that was based on Goethe's
Faust. This popular poem was used by many composers to set to music, including
Wagner, Schumann, and Liszt. Berlioz first read the French translation of the
poem when he was a 23-year-old medical student and he was immediately fascinated
by it. He made two attempts at setting the story of Faust to music. Shortly
after he had read the story, he composed eight pieces of music depicting eight
scenes in the poem. Soon displeased with them and having a grander plan for a
larger work, Berlioz withdrew them from publication and destroyed any copy he
could find. The second attempt, which is the current form of Damnation, was much
grander in scale, and the movements flow from one to another more smoothly in
telling the story of Faust.
The Tavern and the Opera
The Damnation of Faust was composed as a 'dramatic legend' rather than as an
opera, and is usually performed in concert form rather than in a staged form
with costumes and scenery and contrived movements as is the case with 'real'
operas. It is considered an opera because it has been staged as such and also
because if one closes one's eyes, most of it sounds like an opera, and quite a
dramatic one at that. More important from our point of view, Berlioz gives us
Auerbach's tavern while the more familiar Faust operas of Gounod and Boito do
not. In this I am following the practice I began in the item about Chez Bancelin
from Auber's Manon Lescaut in using a lesser known opera with a more substantial
bar or restaurant setting.
Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig is the first stop of the tour Mephistopheles puts
on to show Faust what the good life is about after they have made their infernal
bargain. There is much loutish behaviour, and Faust is eventually disgusted and
leaves. After this, of course, there are much more attractive pleasures
presented him, and he duly succumbs.
Berlioz follows Goethe quite closely in this scene. Goethe even gives a 'Song of
the Rat' and a 'Song of the Flea' which Berlioz sets almost as is.
The Bar Review
Unfortunately, Goethe and Berlioz work hard at ensuring that we come away with a
negative impression of Auerbach's Cellar. The place is really a representation
for all that is low and wicked in the world. I suppose this is the result of
letting intellectuals write plays on deep and ponderous subjects.
In the rear there are stairs leading up to the street. The atmosphere is close,
dingy, smoky, and raucous. Around the dozen or so tables, the regulars are
drinking and gambling. They are all regulars and they are all drunk. They all
look like they have been drunk every day for the past several years. They are
crude in language and behaviour, and often break into fights.
For all this, they do manage some pretty good bar room singing. Fortunately, the
action takes place before the invention of the stereophonic electronic music
destructor systems which have wreaked such havoc on taverns in our own time.
There are four reasonably good drinking songs (which may figure eventually in
the Drinking Songs category). There is a loud chorus to start, then Brander's
Song of the Rat, followed by a delicious, if sacrilegious fugal Amen. Finally
Mephistopheles gives us his Song of the Flea.
