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Although 'Mefistofele' is unsatisfactory as a whole, the extraordinary beauty of several single scenes ought to secure for it such immortality as the stage has to offer. Boito is most happily inspired by Margaret, and the two scenes in which she appears are masterpieces of beauty and pathos. In the garden scene he has caught the ineffable simplicity of her character with astonishing success.
But this is not the end of Mozart's opera as he wrote it, as readers of this book have been told. This prologue of "Mefistofele" plays in heaven. "In the heavens," says Theodore Marzials, the English translator of Boito's opera, out of deference to the religious sensibilities of the English people, to spare which he also changes "God" into "sprites," "spirits," "powers of good," and "angels."
'Tis beautiful to hear Good and Evil speak together with such humanity." The picture disclosed by the opening of the curtain is a mass of clouds, with Mefistofele, like a dark blot, standing on a corner of his cloak in the shadow. The denizens of the celestial regions are heard but never seen.
"Knowest thou Faust?" asks the Divine Voice; and Mefistofele tells of the philosopher's insatiable thirst for wisdom. Then he offers the wager. Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?
"seems to have inspired the similar effect in Falstaff's discourse on honor in Verdi's opera. The pair quickly come to an understanding on the terms already set forth. Act II carries us first into the garden of Dame Martha, where we find Margherita strolling arm in arm with Faust, and Martha with Mefistofele.
But Girardin was too much occupied with his own affairs to attend to him when Boito presented himself, and after waiting wearily, vainly, and long, he went to Poland, where, for want of something else to do, he sketched the opera "Mefistofele," which made its memorable fiasco at Milan in March, 1868.
The libretto for Verdi's last work, "Otello," was prepared by Boïto, who had previously assisted him in rearranging his "Simon Boccanegra," and who also wrote the poem of "La Gioconda" for Ponchielli. Boïto is a thorough believer in Wagner's doctrine that every composer should write his own opera books, and he followed this rule in his interesting opera "Mefistofele."
Faust is breathing in the idiom of Helen's song like a delicate perfume which inspires him with love; Mefistofele longs for the strong, resinous odors of the Harz Mountains, where dominion over the Northern hags belongs to him. Faust is already gone, and he is about to depart when there approaches a band of Choretids.
With gentle grace they move through a Grecian dance, and Mefistofele retires in disgust. Helen returns profoundly disquieted by a vision of the destruction of Troy, of which she was the cause. The Choretids seek to calm her in vain, but the tortures of conscience cease when she sees Faust before her.
Had he followed his inclinations and the advice of Victor Hugo, who gave him a letter of introduction to Emile de Girardin, he would have become a journalist in Paris instead of the composer of "Mefistofele" and the poet of "Otello," "Falstaff," "La Gioconda," and "Ero e Leandro."
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