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It was performed at Bologna in 1875, and met with an enthusiastic success. Its introduction to this country is largely due to Mme. Christine Nilsson, though Mme. Marie Roze was the first artist to appear in it here. "Mephistopheles," grand opera in a prologue, four acts, and epilogue, words by the composer, was first performed at La Scala, Milan, in 1868.
His name was Börje Nilsson, and he was a sailor on the Swedish lugger "Albertina." As long as the boat lay in the harbor, he came almost every day to her home, and they could soon no longer believe that he was only a common sailor. He shone always in a clean, turned-down collar and wore a sailor suit of fine cloth.
On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
She had five upper notes the quality of which was unlike any other I ever heard and that possessed a peculiar charm. The tragedy happened during a performance of The Magic Flute in London.... Nilsson was the Queen of the Night, one of her most successful early rôles. The second aria in The Magic Flute is more famous and less difficult than the first aria, and also, more effective.
Carl's sobriquet in the village, coming from such lips, sent the hot blood to her cheeks. "Yes, Mr. Nilsson saved his life," she answered slowly, with girlish dignity, a backward rush filling her heart as she remembered Carl staggering out of the burning stable, Patsy held close to his breast. "The fellers in Rockville say ye think it was set afire. I see Justice Rowan turned Billy McGaw loose.
Nilsson knew well the ineffectiveness of the ending of the first aria in the two weakest notes of a soprano's voice, A natural and B flat. I never could understand why a master like Mozart should have chosen to use them as he did. There is no climax to the song. One has to climb up hard and fast and then stop short in the middle.
I wondered if they were going to put a warming-pan in the bed. A mat was laid down with great precision. Then Nilsson came in, dressed in a flounced petticoat trimmed with lace, a "matinee," and black slippers, and got into the bed. After the performance was over the curtain was raised and the artists came forward to bow; the stage was covered with flowers and wreaths.
She reminded him of the great Norse women he had read about in his boyhood. Besides all this, he was loyal and true to the woman who had befriended him, and who had so far appreciated his devotion to her interests as to promote him from hostler and driver to foreman of the stables. Nilsson knew Quigg by sight, for he had seen him walking home with Jennie from church.
Ten years after its first performance it was revised to fit the schemes of the Grand Opera, and brought forward under the new auspices on March 3, 1869. Mlle. Christine Nilsson was the new Marguerite. No opera has since equalled the popularity of "Faust" in Paris. Twenty-eight years after its first performance, Gounod was privileged to join his friends in a celebration of its 500th representation.
When Nilsson, still white with anger, reached the dock, he related the incident to Cully, who, on his return home, retailed it to Jennie with such variety of gesture and intonation that that young lady blushed scarlet, but whether from sympathy for Quigg or admiration for Nilsson, Cully was unable to decide.
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