Creating or recreating the 'first' Faust

While efforts have been made to programme all the possible variants – often not very different – of the versions with dialogue or recitatives of Lakmé, Mignon and Carmen, during all this time Faust has never known anything but ‘traditional’ dramaturgies, whose standard cuts (Siebel’s second air, the spinning-wheel air, and so on) hardly change the profile of the score. The bicentenary of Gounod’s birth in 2018 made it imperative that this mysterious ‘first’ Faust should finally be revealed. Or almost revealed...