Faust up to date

Faust up to Date
Sheet music
Music	Meyer Lutz
Lyrics	G. R. Sims Henry Pettitt
Book	G. R. Sims Henry Pettitt
Productions	1888 West End

Faust up to Date is a musical burlesque with a score written by Meyer Lutz (a few songs by others were interpolated into the show). The libretto was written by G. R. Sims and Henry Pettitt. It is a spoof of Gounod's opera, Faust, which had first been performed in London in 1864, and followed on from an earlier Lutz musical, Mephistopheles, or Faust and Marguerite.

The piece was first performed at the Gaiety Theatre, London on 30 October 1888, produced by George Edwardes, and ran until August 1889. It starred Florence St. John as Margaret, E. J. Lonnen as Mephistopheles and Mabel Love as Totchen. It was revived in July 1892, with Florence St. John again playing the role of Margaret, Edmund Payne as Mephistopheles and Arthur Williams as Valentine. The piece enjoyed subsequent productions in New York, Australia (with Robert Courtneidge as Valentine) and elsewhere.

This type of burlesque, or travesty was popular in Britain at the time. Other examples include The Bohemian G-yurl and the Unapproachable Pole (1877), Blue Beard (1882), Ariel (1883, by F. C. Burnand), Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed (1883), Little Jack Sheppard (1885), Monte Cristo Jr (1886), Miss Esmeralda (1887), Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim (1887), Mazeppa, Ruy Blas and the Blase Roue (1888), Carmen up to Data (1890), Cinder Ellen up too Late (1891) and Don Juan (1892, with lyrics by Adrian Ross).

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