The Sunday Opera will be flirting with the devil this week (7/26 3:00 p.m.) as we continue with the Lyric Opera and their production of Charles Gounod’s “Faust.” The legend of Faust was first seen in written form in 1587 and has long been the inspiration for composers with some twenty operas based in some way on this cautionary tale. Gounod’s work premiered in 1859 and is based on the first part of the play by Goethe with Faust selling his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasure. Benjamin Bernheim is the Faust and Christian Van Horn the treacherous Mephistopheles. Margueritte, the woman Faust destroys with his love, is Ailyn Perez, Valentin, her brother, is Edward Park, and Siebel, her young suitor, is Annie Rosen. Jill Grove completes the cast as Margueritte’s guardian, Marthe. Emmanuel Villaume conducts.
We’ll end the program with more music of Gounod with his Saint Cecilia Mass featuring Hisa Fukuda, Friedrich Lenz, and Matthias Pleis with the Orchestra and Chorus of St. Michael, Munich under the direction of conductor, Elmar Schloter.
