Mefistofele

It all begins with a wager between God and Mephistopheles, his diabolical adversary. The stake is Faust – or, specifically, his soul. Yet Faust, too, has ambitions. He wants to overcome God, to be eternally young and all-knowing, and in doing so becomes the clueless plaything of the higher powers. To leave nothing to chance in this battle of powers, Mephistopheles never leaves Faust’s side from then on. Together they travel through space and time: to Margherita, whom Faust drives to her death; to Walpurgis Night; and finally to Elena in ancient Greece. Thus the struggle for eternity becomes a quest for salvation...

Arrigo Boito’s only opera is also a struggle and an attempt to overturn the established order. With this work, the composer sought nothing less than to revolutionise Italian opera. For this purpose, he adapted Goethe’s “Faust” and combined powerful choruses and ethereal sounds into a wild theatre spectacle, at the heart of which the cynical Devil runs riot.