Variations On the Costumed Embodiment of Faust’s Marguerite, 1859-1914

Abstract

One might think that the historical period in which an opera is set naturally and solely dictates costume design. A theater costume must be “un argument,” Roland Barthes wrote in “Les maladies du costume de théâtre” (1964), lamenting the creative extravagances that distance it from the intent of the work. From the creation of Gounod’s Faust, sets and costumes have nevertheless been the focus of attention, even arousing the interest of such eminent artists as Ingres (1780–1867) and Delacroix (1798–1863). This paper shows that despite the historicist trend — and its concern for sartorial accuracy — that swept through the visual and performing arts in the nineteenth century, the emblematic costume of the character Marguerite is the result of an array of influences. A historical approach is favored in order to situate Gounod’s work in the artistic context of its time, and the protagonist’s costume in relation to the interpretations of painters and the vernacular clothing of the German working classes in the sixteenth century, the period in which the libretto is set. By focusing on the costumes of a few performers who have left their mark on the role, this text also examines how these and other factors may have interacted to make Marguerite’s costume a recognizable object with changing contours, a shifting composite of fixed references, aesthetic preferences, and histrionic choices that ultimately helped its performers propagate and even sublimate their public image.