He fights a duel with
Faust, whom he finds lurking under his sister's window, and dies cursing
Margaret with his last breath. During this act occurs the church scene,
which is sometimes performed after Valentine's death and sometimes
before it. Margaret is kneeling in the shadowy minster, striving to
pray, but the voice of conscience stifles her half-formed utterances. In
Gounod's libretto, the intangible reproaches which Margaret addresses
to herself are materialised in the form of Mephistopheles, a proceeding
which is both meaningless and inartistic, though perhaps dramatically
unavoidable. In the,' last act, after a short scene on the Brocken and a
conventional ballet, which are rarely performed in England, we are taken
to the prison where Margaret lies condemned to death for the murder of
her child. Faust is introduced by the aid of Mephistopheles, and tries
to persuade her to fly with him. Weak and wandering though she is, she
refuses, and dies to the chant of an angelic choir, while Faust is
dragged down to the abyss by Mephistopheles. Gounod's music struggles
nobly with the tawdriness and sentimentality of the libretto. A good
deal of the first and last acts is commonplace and conventional, but the
other three contain beauties of a high order. The life and gaiety of the
Kermesse scene in the second act, the sonorous dignity of Valentine's
invocation of the cross, and the tender grace of Faust's salutation--the
last a passage which might have been written by Mozart--are too familiar
to need more than a passing reference.
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