A note from Bob Chapman about TONIGHT's WCPE Opera House

This Thursday evening, June 11, the WCPE Opera House will present an encore performance of Charles Gounod's Faust, hosted by the late Al Ruocchio.  Based on episodes from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's epic poem, it focuses on Marguerite, the love interest of the elderly Dr. Faust, who's bargained his soul with Méphistophélès-the Devil himself-in exchange for a second chance at youth.  Indeed, in German-speaking countries the opera is entitled Margarethe rather than Faust, since many opera lovers there object strenuously to what they regard as Gounod's trivializing of Goethe's magnum opus.

Be that as it may, Faust is one of the most melodious works to ever grace an operatic stage and is a marvelous piece of musical theater.  This 1978 EMI recording features tenor Plácido Domingo in the title role, soprano Mirella Freni as Marguerite, baritone Thomas Allen as Valentin, and bass Nicolai Ghiaurov as Méphistophélès.  Georges Prêtres conducts the Paris National Opera Theater Orchestra and Chorus.

Next Thursday, June 18, I'll be back to present a delightful pair of twentieth-century masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky: Le Rossignol (The Nightingale) and The Rake's Progress.  Written nearly forty years apart, Le Rossignol is very much in keeping with the Russian operatic traditions of 1914, while The Rake's Progress of 1951 looks backwards stylistically to the eighteenth-century operatic styles of Haydn and Mozart. 

The WCPE Opera House is heard every Thursday evening at 7 o'clock in the Eastern time zone on 89.7 FM in central North Carolina, and we're streamed online at http://www.theclassicalstation.org .

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