The figures seem to move, as in the
Kinetoscope, or its forerunner the Wheel of Life: the Mozartean opera,
when most dramatic, is a musical Wheel of Life. Gounod possessed
neither Mozart's tact nor his fiery energy. Neither was called for in
"Faust," which is not a drama, but a series of scenes, of crucial
moments, from a drama; and since the moments were moments charged with
the one feeling which Gounod appears to have felt very strongly or to
have had the faculty for expressing, he is here at his very best.
There was nothing spiritual in love as Gounod knew it--it was purely
animal, though delicately animal; and Marguerite remains, and will
remain, as the final expression of the most refined and voluptuous
form of sensuality. What he had done in "Faust" he attempted to do
again, with sundry differences, in "Romeo and Juliet"; and here the
method which had served him so faithfully and so well in "Faust"
utterly broke down. In "Faust" there were virtually but two
characters, Faust and Marguerite, while in "Romeo" the stage was
encumbered with Tybalt, Capulet, Mercutio, Laurent; and what would
have been Mozart's opportunity was his undoing. He could give none of
them pungent or characteristic language; they are the merest Italian
operatic puppets; and it is only when they are off the stage that the
opera shows any signs of life.
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