Berlioz’s rarely performed vision of the immortal Faust legend sees the return of Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel to the Paris Opera, in a production broadcast live to cinemas across the world. Kaufmann is the fiery title hero whose impulsive bargain with Méphistophélès (Terfel) proves fatal. Sophie Koch plays the lovely and tragic Marguerite, the woman who gives everything to the man she loves.

Bringing out the dramatic force of this légende dramatique is a constant challenge that stage director Alvis Hermanis has willingly accepted. Philippe Jordan conducts the first installment of a Berlioz cycle which is to continue over several seasons.

“This marvellous book fascinated me from the very beginning. I could not put it down. I read it incessantly, during meals, in the theatre, in the street, everywhere.” And so it was, following the composer’s discovery of Faust Part One in 1828 that Goethe joined Virgil and Shakespeare to form Berlioz’s trinity.

“Once underway, I wrote the missing verses as the musical ideas came to me. I composed the score when and where I could – in the carriage, on the train, on steam boats”. As if swept away by “the longing of too vast a heart, and a soul thirsting for elusive happiness”, Berlioz became one with his creation. The voice that invokes “immense, impenetrable and proud nature” is entirely his own, its extraordinary breadth transcending traditional forms to become a symphonic and operatic dream.