About the production
The outsider Faust loses the joy of life and wants to take his own life. Mephisto appears and promises him power, happiness and pleasure.
As if in a feverish dream, Faust embarks with him on a quest for self-realization. In a world of soldiers, students and fantastic beings, a destructive relationship develops with Marguerite. In order to save her, Faust gives his soul to Mephisto and plunges into hell, while Marguerite finds redemption.
Berlioz was only loosely inspired by Goethe's Faust drama, which he had already read in the popular French prose translation by Gérard de Nerval in the 1820s and set to music with great enthusiasm in 1829 for his later withdrawn opus 1 Huit scènes de Faust. Berlioz drew on some of these compositions, such as Marguerite's song Le roi de Thulé (The King of Thule), for the setting of La Damnation de Faust.
The concert premiere of La Damnation de Faust in Vienna took place almost 160 years to the day before the premiere date of this new production, on December 16, 1866, under the baton of the composer himself and with the participation of the Vienna Singverein. In Lydia Steier's new production, La Damnation de Faust receives its staged premiere at the Vienna State Opera.
