Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

Roméo et Juliette

Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod, considered the central figure in French music in the third quarter of the 19th century, has, like his compatriot Jules Massenet, fallen into a cycle in which his music is "in vogue" for a while, and then considered passé and uninteresting. This is often a result of a critique of his sacred songs, anthems, and oratorios, which are either pearls or anathema to many musicians. This is unfortunate, because his oeuvres include many compositions of great beauty and inspiration.

Charles François Gounod was born in the City of Light on 18 June, 1818 to musical and artistic parents. He was a good pupil of music and belles lettres, and entered the Paris Conservatoire when he was 18, studying with Ludovic Halévy. He won many prizes in composition, and when he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1839, he left Paris for that Italian Mecca. He flourished in Rome, coming under the influence of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, the great singer Pauline Viardot Garcia, and the Dominican Friar Père Lacordaire, who provided the young Gounod with great religious inspiration, an impulse which throughout his entire life would be at odds with his hedonism and carnality. Gounod was very much taken with the Renaissance music of Palestrina, Vittoria, and the other masters, and programmed it so often at his church of the Mission Etrangères that the vestry complained. It is highly ironic that in this day the church musicians that favor Palestrina would largely be loathe to have a note of Gounod's in their repertoire, little knowing that he was a major proponent of that repertoire in a time when it was little-known and appreciated!

His religious studies at St. Sulpice Seminary almost led to a call to the priesthood, but, deciding against the vocation, he devoted himself almost totally to the composition of sacred music from 1846-1851. The great Pauline Viardot asked him to write an opera for her, and the work, Sapho, was premiered in 1851. The opera, in spite of praise from Berlioz and the stellar attraction of the premier diva of the day, was not successful, and today exists only in the beautiful mezzo aria "O ma lyre immortelle," almost Gluck-like in its form and style. After a series of operatic failures, most of them in the style of Meyerbeer, he hit gold with the perennially popular Faust, premiered in 1859. Upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he moved to France, where he was popular with royalty and commoner alike; indeed, Faust was Queen Victoria's favorite opera. To assuage the English taste for "genteel" church music, he began a concentrated period of producing sacred songs in that sometimes maligned style, among them "There is a Green Hill Far Away", "O Divine Redeemer", and the deathless "Ave Maria", set to the Prelude in C from Das Wohtemperierte Klavier of J.S. Bach.

Of all of his operatic works, only Roméo et Juliette has found a critical and public acclaim akin to that of Faust, which, other than the "Ave Maria", is probably his best known work. In spite of having only a few works enter a place in musical posterity, his influence was widespread, and such great 20th century composers as Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric have proclaimed him as being an essential part of the evolution of French music. Charles Gounod died in St. Cloud on 18 October 1893, deeply mourned by opera and church music lovers in both Europe and the United States.

James Harp

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