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FULL FAUST ET HELENE (Lili Boulanger) Buenos Aires 2026 Dara Savinova, Alejandro Spies, Santiago Martínez
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Faust et Hélène
- Composer: Boulanger Lili
- Libretto: based on scenes from Goethe's Faust
- Venue & Opera Company: Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Recorded: Augsut 21, 2026
- Type: Concert Live
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
PARTE I
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Fausto y Helena, episodio lírico basado
en la segunda parte del Fausto de
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1913)
PARTE II
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Idilio de Sigfrido (1870)
Piotr Ilich Chaikovski (1840-1893)
Romeo y Julieta, obertura-fantasía
(1869/70/80)
Andante non tanto quasi Moderato—
Allegro giusto
Faust et Hélène is a cantata for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone and orchestra by Lili Boulanger composed in 1913. It is with this work that she won the Prix de Rome the same year, becoming the first woman to obtain this award (her sister, Nadia Boulanger, had won a second prize in 1908).
Context
Lili Boulanger had tried to win the Prix de Rome in 1912, but withdrew because of health problems. Presenting herself the following year, she became the first woman to win the first grand prize of Rome of musical composition with her cantata Faust and Helen.
Composition
This “lyrical episode, with the incipit “Minds that flimble in the shadow of the calm evening”, is composed during the housing (at the castle of Compiègne) of the competition of the prize of Rome, from May 22 to June 21, 1913.
Faust and Hélène is composed on a poem by Eugène Adenis, who based himself on Goethe’s second Faust (in Gerard de Nerval’s translation). Mireille Gaudin notes that the text of Adenis “offers a shortcut of well-contalogued theatrical situations: sleep, theft of benevolent spirits, scene of love, evocation of the specters, divine curse.”
The cantata lasts about 30 minutes]. It is written for three vocal soloists (a mezzo-soprano, a tenor and a baritone) and orchestra]. For the orchestra, the nomenclature is: 2 flutes, 1 piccolo (playing 3 ee flute), 2 oboe, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 2 bass, 1 sarrussophone, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 horns, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, timbales, percussions (large crate, cymbals, triangle),harpescordespremiers violonsseconds violonsaltosvioloncellescontrebasses Vocal roles are: Faust (tenor), Mephistopheles (baritone) and HélèneHélène (mezzo-soprano).
Quoted from Wikipedia