Performance History
Its first performance at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, 6 December 1846, did not meet with critical acclaim, perhaps due to its halfway status between opera and cantata; the public was apathetic, and two performances (and a cancelled third) rendered a financial setback for Berlioz: "Nothing in my career as an artist wounded me more deeply than this unexpected indifference", he remembered.
La Damnation de Faust is performed regularly in concert halls, since its first successful complete performance in concert in Paris, in 1877; it is occasionally staged as an opera, for the first time in Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 18 February 1893, where it was produced by its director Raoul Gunsbourg, Jean de Reszke singing the role of Faust. The Metropolitan Opera premiered it first in concert (2 February 1896) and then on stage (the United States stage premiere on 7 December 1906). The Met revived it first in concert at Carnegie Hall on 10 November 1996, (repeated on tour in Tokyo the next year), then on the stage production on 7 November 2008, produced and directed by Robert Lepage, with innovative techniques of computer-generated stage imagery that responds to the performers' voices. Filmmaker Terry Gilliam made his opera debut at London's English National Opera in May 2011, directing The Damnation of Faust. The production received positive reviews in the British press
Three instrumental passages, the Marche Hongroise (Hungarian March), Ballet des sylphes, and Menuet des follets are sometimes extracted and performed as "Three Orchestral Pieces from La Damnation de Faust."
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