Faust — Charles Gounod

A story about the search for humanity and fulfillment — not through great ideas, but through an encounter with another human being. Charles Gounod's opera in the directorial vision of Karolina Sofulak is a picture of human desires, the consequences of choices and the search for one's own identity.

opera in five acts

libretto by Jules Barbier and Michael Carré

“Faust”, staged by Karolina Sofulak, becomes not only a story about a pact with the devil, but above all a drama of a man searching for meaning in a world full of chaos and division. The director takes the protagonist of Charles Gounod's opera from the Renaissance cabinet of the scholar to the present day, confronting him with questions about the limits of knowledge, responsibility and the true meaning of humanism. The eponymous Faust is a scientist who devoted his entire life to learning the secrets of the world, but in isolation from people lost the ability to understand them. Faced with the passing and silence of God, he invokes Mephistopheles, who offers him the opportunity to experience life anew. Their journey together leads them to a modern world — grotesque, full of tensions and divisions, but also to a meeting with Małgorzata. It is she who becomes for Faust the personification of true humanism: empathy, courage and openness to others. Her sensitivity and independence force the hero to abandon his own prejudices and look at the world from a new perspective. At the heart of the play are questions about whether an individual can defy social patterns, whether it is possible to regain a lost bond with another human being, and whether the modern world still leaves room for goodness, compassion and hope.

Translation from French into Polish — Marta Sukiennicka