In May, I attended the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Berlioz’ Damnation of Faust. This work, featuring four soloists, a full choir and orchestra, and a children’s choir, was first performed in Hungary in 1846. Its composition was inspired by a French translation of Goethe’s Faust, following the basic storyline of Faust in four acts: Faust’s disillusionment; Faust’s encounter with Mephistopheles and the allure of happiness; Faust’s seduction of Marguerite; and Faust’s damnation/ Marguerite’s redemption. With such limited space, the opera/cantata plays more as a précis of Faust than a full telling of the story, which is perhaps why the dramatis personae seem rather more like caricatures of themselves than richly developed characters. There were beautiful moments in the music, and the performances were brilliant, but the whole left me feeling apathetic… that is, until I went to the bathroom.
While waiting beneath the gorgeous mosaics of Cleveland’s Severence Hall for use of one of three (or four?) petite little stalls in the ladies’ room on the atrium level, I chatted with one of the regular elders I have come to know in line over the years. She complained to me, “I don’t know why Marguerite gets saved and Faust is damned. After all, Marguerite is the one who poisons her mother. Marguerite is really at fault here, don’t you think?” Ah, I thought, here it is. The woman is blamed, but for what? For murder (occasioned by Marguerite’s carrying out Faust’s directive); or for her beauty (Faust cedes to Mephisto’s power to seduce because he is, in his own way, seduced first by Marguerite’s appearance); or for having sex with someone outside of marriage (Marguerite carries the burden of responsibility for shaming her family and for her own destruction). My bathroom friend would have been happy to see Marguerite pay for these crimes and found it dissatisfying that she was delivered from them. Continue reading “Gretchen Before and After by Natalie Weaver”
Feminism and Religion 