Charles Gounod’s Faust opened New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1883.
The Metropolitan Opera House opened on 22 October 1883 with a performance of Faust. Gounod’s opera, based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, was chosen for the inaugural production, with the company’s first season also presenting works by composers including Verdi, Wagner, and Meyerbeer.
The original Metropolitan Opera House stood on Broadway between West 39th and West 40th Streets. The company later moved to its current home at Lincoln Center in 1966. The inaugural building was eventually demolished, but the opening performance remains an important date in American opera history.
Faust is sometimes confused with Gounod’s other works or with later opening-night productions at Lincoln Center. The 1883 question refers specifically to the first Metropolitan Opera House, not the company’s present theatre. In the opera, the scholar Faust makes a pact with Méphistophélès and becomes involved with Marguerite.