he learns of her temptation and subsequent ruin.  He challenges the seducer, and in the encounter is slain by the intervention of Mephistopheles.  Overcome by the horror of her situation, Marguerite becomes insane, and in her frenzy kills her child.  She is thrown into prison, where Faust and Mephistopheles find her.  Faust urges her to fly with them, but she refuses, and places her reliance for salvation upon earnest prayer, and sorrow for the wrong she has done.  Pleading for forgiveness, she expires; and as Mephistopheles exults at the catastrophe he has wrought, angels appear amid the music of the celestial choirs and bear the sufferer to heaven.

The first act is in the nature of a prelude, and opens with a long soliloquy ("Interrogo invano”) by Faust, in which he laments the unsatisfactoriness of life.  It is interwoven with delightful snatches of chorus heard behind the scenes, a duet with Mephistopheles ("Ma il ciel"), and the delicate music accompanying the vision of Marguerite.

The second act is contained in a single setting, the Kermesse, in which the chorus plays an important part.  In the first scene the choruses of students, soldiers, old men, girls, and matrons are quaintly contrasted, and are full of animation and characteristic color.  In the second, Valentin sings a tender song ("O santa medaglia”) to a medallion of his sister which he wears as a charm.  It is followed by a grim and weird drinking-song ("Dio dell’ or"), sung by Mephistopheles.  The latter then strikes fire from the fountain into his cup, and proposes the health of Marguerite.  Valentin springs forward to resent the insult, only to find his sword broken in his hands.  The students and soldiers recognize the spirit of evil, and overcome him by presenting the hilts of their swords in the form of a cross, the scene being accompanied by one of the most effective choruses in the work ("Tu puvi la spada").  The tempter gone, the scene resumes its gayety, and the act closes with one of the most animated and delightful of waltz tempos ("Come la brezza").

The third act is the Garden scene, full of fascinating detail, and breathes the very spirit of poetry and music combined in a picture of love which has never been excelled in tenderness and beauty on the operatic stage.  Its principal numbers are a short and simple but very beautiful ballad for Siebel ("La parlate d’amor"); a passionate aria for tenor ("Salve dimora casta e pura"), in which Faust greets Marguerite’s dwelling; a double number, which is superb in its contrasts,—­the folk-song, “C’era un re di Thule,” a plaintive little ballad sung at the spinning-wheel by Marguerite, and the bravura jewel-song, “Ah! e’ strano poter,” which is the very essence of delicacy and almost-childish glee; the quartet commencing, “V’appogiato al bracchio mio,” which is of striking interest by the independent manner in which the two pairs of voices are treated and combined in the close; and the closing duet ("Sempre amar”) between Faust and Marguerite, which is replete with tenderness and passion, and closes in strains of almost ecstatic rapture, the fatal end of which is foreshadowed by the mocking laugh of Mephistopheles breaking in upon its lingering cadences.