In the story of "Romeo" the passion is
of a far more fiery quality than in that of "Faust"; and whereas in
"Faust" the passion, once aroused, remains at an even level until the
finale, where it becomes a little more intense, in "Romeo" it is
passion which gradually amounts to a tremendous climax in the Balcony
scene, and in the Bedroom scene is strangely blended with chilly
forebodings of death. The Mozartean method did not permit Gounod to
depict these metamorphoses and blendings of feeling. Mozart himself
would have been hard pressed to do it; and, for want of the only
method that might have enabled Gounod to do it,--the Wagnerian method
of continuous development of typical themes,--the unfolding of the
drama hangs fire in every scene, not a scene ends at a higher pitch of
feeling than it began. The last scene of all, the scene where a more
sincere composer would have made his most stupendous effect, demanded
at least sympathy with emotions for which Gounod at no time showed the
slightest sympathy. He could give us the erotic fervour with which
Romeo looks death in the eyes, but the mood preceding and indeed
leading up to that fervour he could not give us--the mood which finds
the world barren, ugly, and so repellent that death itself appears
beautiful by comparison, the mood to which Christianity makes its
strongest appeal.
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