''Faustus, the Last Night'' is an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

in English by French composer

Pascal Dusapin Pascal Georges Dusapin (born 29 May 1955) is a French composer. His music is marked by its microtonality, tension, and energy. A pupil of Iannis Xenakis and Franco Donatoni and an admirer of Varèse, Dusapin studied at the University of Paris I ...

, inspired by '' Doctor Faustus'' (c. 1588) by

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon the ...

. The work was premiered on 21 January 2006 by the

Berlin State Opera The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from ...

, a coproduction with the

Opéra de Lyon This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...

. It was first staged in the United States at the

Spoleto Festival USA Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of America's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due ...

2007.

History

''Faustus, the Last Night'' was commissioned by the

and the

Opéra National de Lyon The Opéra National de Lyon, marketed as Opéra de Lyon during the last decade, is an opera company in Lyon, based and performing mostly at the Opéra Nouvel, an 1831 theater that was modernized and architecturally transformed in 1993. The inaugu ...

. The genesis of

's fifth opera took ten years before the composer began writing the play in earnest between 2003 and 2004. The composer chose Marlowe's morality play rather than Goethe's drama as the basis of the composition. He wrote his own English-language

libretto A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the t ...

, inspired also by

Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanicu ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

, and

Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...

. ''Faustus'' has been described as a work of ideas rather than actions. Dusapin's opera was premiered on 21 January 2006 at the

, conducted by

Michael Boder Michael Boder (born 9 November 1958) is a German conductor of opera and concert who works internationally. The chief conductor of the Royal Danish Theatre, he has conducted regularly at the Vienna State Opera, including the premieres of Cerha's ' ...

and staged by with Georg Nigl (Faustus),

Hanno Müller-Brachmann Hanno Müller-Brachmann (born 1970) is a German bass-baritone who made an international career in both opera and concert. A member of the Berlin State Opera from 1998 to 2011, he first sang Mozart roles such as The Magic Flute, Papageno and The M ...

(Mephistopheles), Robert Wörle (Sly), Jaco Huijpen (Togod), Caroline Stein (Angel) in the lead roles. Subsequently, the work was performed at the

where it was recorded on DVD. Jonathan Stockhammer conducted the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon, and almost all Berlin soloists performed again with Urban Malmberg playing Mephistopheles. The first performance in the United-States was given at the

in June 2007. It was staged by David Herskovits, with John Kennedy conducting the Festival Orchestra, and John Hancock in the title role."The Questions Are Big, but the Devil's in the Details"
in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' 3 June 2007.

Roles

Music

The composer regarded the Faustus tale as an

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...

of man and power, the human obsession with power, and of light ("über den Menschen und die Macht, die Besessenheit von der Macht, vom Licht"); Faust could be a dictator, terrorist, or president. Faustus and Mephisto are like an old symbiotic couple. Their lines sometimes overlap, which a reviewer described as "blurring" the characters. Sly, a jestor from Shakespeare's ''

The Taming of the Shrew ''The Taming of the Shrew'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken ...

'', adds contrast. The opera's "conversational tone" about "thought and concept" has been compared to '' Capriccio''. In the orchestra, long chords contrast to short eruptions ("explosionsartigen Ausbrüchen"). A reviewer of ''

'' notes:

References

External links

''Faustus, The Last Night''
on the website of Opéra de Lyon
''Faustus, The Last Night''
on BnF
''Faustus, the last night de Pascal Dusapin''
on Louvre.fr
''Faustus, the last night , Faust, dernière nuit opéra de Pascal Dusapin''
on Anaclase * , with a long German introduction, performance starts at 13:20
"''Faustus, the Last Night''"
in ''Operas in English: A Dictionary'' by

Margaret Ross Griffel Margaret Ross Griffel (born 9 July 1943) is an American musicologist and author. Biography Griffel graduated from High School of Music & Art, in Manhattan, New York in 1961. She earned a B.A. from Barnard College in 1965, M.A. in European and Am ...

, Scarecrow, 2012, pp. 168–169 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Faustus, the Last Night 2000s operas English-language operas Works based on the Faust legend Operas Operas based on plays Compositions by Pascal Dusapin Adaptations of works by Christopher Marlowe