Doktor Faust

Doktor Faust
Opera by Ferruccio Busoni
The composer photographed in 1916
Description	(unfinished)
Librettist	Ferruccio Busoni
Language	German
Based on	Faust
Premiere	21 May 1925 (1925-05-21) Sächsiches Staatstheater, Dresden

Doktor Faust is an opera by Ferruccio Busoni with a German libretto by the composer himself, based on the myth of Faust. Busoni worked on the opera, which he intended as his masterpiece, between 1916 and 1924, but it was still incomplete at the time of his death. His pupil Philipp Jarnach finished it. More recently, in 1982, Antony Beaumont completed the opera using sketches by Busoni which were previously thought to have been lost. Nancy Chamness has published an analysis of the libretto to Doktor Faust and a comparison with Goethe's version.

Doktor Faust was given its world premiere at the Sächsiches Staatstheater, Dresden on 21 May 1925 using the version completed by Philipp Jarnach. The premiere was conducted by Fritz Busch, produced by Alfred Reucker, and designed by Karl Danneman. Over the next few years the opera was performed in many of the opera houses of Germany including those in Dortmund, Duisburg, Karlsruhe, Weimar, and Hanover in 1925; Hanover and Wiesbaden in 1926; and Stuttgart, Dortmund, Hanover, Cologne, Leipzig, Hamburg, and Frankfurt in 1927. The opera finally reached Berlin on 27 October 1927 with a performance at the Staatsoper am Platz der Republik. The work was performed again in Hanover and in Prague, the first performance outside of Germany, in June 1928.

Its first performance in England was on 17 March 1937 in a concert version presented at Queen's Hall, London, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The opera was sung in the English translation prepared by Edward J. Dent, produced by Edward Clark, and starred Dennis Noble as Faust and Parry Jones as Mephistopheles. A second concert version was presented at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 13 November 1959, again conducted by Boult, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role and Richard Lewis as Mephistopheles. The UK stage premiere did not occur until 1986, when it was mounted in London at the English National Opera beginning on 25 April with conductors Mark Elder and Antony Beaumont. Thomas Allen sang Faust and Graham Clark, Mephistopheles. The performance was sung in Dent's translation and used the new ending by Antony Beaumont.