fully
elaborated, long prior to its final crystallization. But he was not yet
quite ready to enter seriously on the composition of the masterpiece.
He must still try his hand on lesser themes. Occasional pieces for the
orchestra or choruses strengthened his hold on these important elements
of lyric composition, and in 1858 he produce "Le Medecin malgre lui,"
based on Moliere's comedy, afterward performed as an English opera under
the title of "The Mock Doctor." Gounod's genius seems to have had no
affinity for the graceful and sparkling measures of comic music, and
his attempt to rival Rossini and Auber in the field where they were
preeminent was decidedly unsuccessful, though the opera contained much
fine music.

II.

The year of his triumph had at last arrived. He had waited and toiled
for years over "Faust," and it was now ready to flash on the world with
an electric brightness that was to make his name instantly famous.
One day saw him an obscure, third-rate composer, the next one of the
brilliant names in art. "Faust," first performed March 19, 1859, fairly
took the world by storm. Gounod's warmest friends were amazed by
the beauty of the masterpiece, in which exquisite melody, great
orchestration, and a dramatic passion never surpassed in operatic art,
were combined with a scientific skill and precision which would vie
with that of the great masters of harmony. Carvalho, the manager of the
Theatre Lyrique, had predicted that the work would have a magnificent
reception by the art world, and lavished on it every stage resource.
Madame Miolan-Carvalho, his brilliant wife, one of the leading sopranos
of the day, sang the role of the heroine, though five years afterward
she was succeeded by Nilsson, who invested the part with a poetry and
tenderness which have never been quite equaled.

"Faust" was received at Berlin, Vienna, Milan, St. Petersburg, and
London, with an enthusiasm not less than that which greeted its Parisian
debut. The clamor of dispute between the different schools was for the
moment hushed in the delight with which the musical critics and public
of universal Europe listened to the magical measures of an opera which
to classical chasteness and severity of form and elevation of motive
united such dramatic passion, richness of melody, and warmth of
orchestral color. From that day to the present "Faust" has retained its
place as not only the greatest but the most popular of modern operas.
The proof