Born in 1805, Louise Bertin was a younger contemporary of Berlioz, and, like him, studied in Paris with Anton Reicha. Fausto was her third opera, one of the earliest to be based on the first part of Goethe’s Faust, and first performed in 1831. It received a lukewarm reception, and Bertin composed only one more stage work – La Esmeralda, based upon Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, for which Hugo himself wrote the libretto. When its premiere, too, was a failure, she abandoned opera and concentrated on choral works, songs and chamber music.
