February 12 1848

Ballet "Faust" Premieres, Milan

First presented by the Ballet of the Teatro alla Scala on February 12, 1848 in Milan, Italy.

The first part of Faust is not divided into acts, but is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theater, the actual plot begins with a prologue in Heaven, where the Lord Challenges Mephistopheles, the Devil, that Mephistopheles cannot lead astray the Lord's favorite striving scholar Dr Faust. we then see Faust in his study, attempting and failing to gain knowledge of nature and the universe by magic means. The dejected Faust contemplates suicide, but id held back by the sounds pf the beginning Easter Celebrations. He joins his assistant Wagner for an easter walk in the countryside, among the celebrating people, and is followed home by a poodle. Back in the study, the poodle transforms itself into Mephistopheles, who offers Faust a contract: he will do Faust's bidding on earth, and Faust will do the same for him in hell (if, as Faust adds in an important side clause, Mephistopheles can get him to be satisfied and to want a moment to last forever) Faust signs in blood, and Mephistopheles first takes him to Auerbach's tavern in Leipzigm where the devil plays some tricks on some drunken revellers. Having then been transformed into a young man by a which, Faust encounters Margaret (Gretchen) and she excites his desire. through a scheme involving Jewelry and Gretchen's neighbor Martha, Mephistopheles brings about Faust's Gretchen's liaison. After a period of separation, Faust seduces Gretchen, who accidentally kills her mother with a sleeping potion Faust had given her. Gretchen is Pregnant, and her torment is further increased when Faust, and Mephistopheles kills her enraged brother in a sword fight. Mephistopheles seeks to distract Faust by taking him to the witches' sabbath of walpurgis Night, but Faust insists on rescuing Gretchen from the death sentence she has been given after going insane and drowning her newborn child. In the dungeon, Faust in vain tries to persuade Gretchen to follow him to freedom. at the end of the drama, as Faust and Mephistopheles flee the dungeon, a voice from heaven announced Gretchen's salvation.