Pearls on a String

When little English Soprano Maggie Teyte first got the idea of doing a new version of Gounod's Faust, she had Hitler in mind: "I wanted to show how Hitler, too, was a Mephistopheles, pulling wires and moving people around just as such men have through history ... I thought the Faust story would be a powerful way to say so."

Maggie made her mind up about another detail: there must be a shorter and more understandable way to tell it than the lengthy and oversweet Barbier and Carre book to which Gounod had set his music. So she picked out the best of Gounod's arias, commissioned English Poet Stephen Spender to write a narration "more in the spirit of Goethe" that would tell the story clearly and bridge the gaps. Last week, a summer audience in sport shirts and bright silk prints packed the sweltering little white frame playhouse at Stockbridge, Mass, for the first performance of the new version.

First, Maggie got them into a receptive mood with some Debussy, Faure and Duparc songs. Then, on a darkened stage, with only a bare black backdrop for scenery, she marched to a lectern and began to narrate: "Behold Faust in his cell . . ." After a few more words in Poet Spender's potpourri of prose and poetry, recapping Faust's learning in "alchemy, and, alas, theology," she froze into a catatonic stare, and Faust, followed by Mephistopheles (Bass Arthur Newman) came on to sing (excellently). By the time the audience rushed out for air at intermission, they had seen and heard Maggie, two pianos and four singers (Faust, Mephistopheles, Marguerite, Valentin) telescope the first three acts into one. Altogether, Maggie's Faust got through to the closing prison-scene trio in just 75 minutes.

Maggie had put on her Faust with a lot of confidence. One old friend, Violinist Fritz Kreisler, told her, "You have put the pearls on a string." Most listeners found that they enjoyed the old pearls from Gounod's score more than they appreciated the new string--Poet Spender's often banal narration. But everyone agreed it was a bang-up show. Producer Maggie, who at 61 vows each year of singing on the concert stage will be her last, was happily thinking about taking her Faust on tour.

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