AustLit

Advertised as a parody on Goethe's Faust," this four act operetta was first staged in Adelaide under the auspcies of the Deutsche Maenner Gesang Verein (German Men's Choral Society) and in aid of the Rhine Inundation Fund. Presented in German, the English-only speaking members of the audience were given a translation in the program. The South Australian Register's critic records, however, that the English words "fell rather flat on paper when contrasted with the sonorous German on the stage" ('Albert Hall: Faust and Gretchen' p.7).

Set in Germany in 1850, the libretto is described as "tolerably smart," with situations somewhat funny" (ibid, p.7). The dramatic act is set up in the beginning:

Dr. Faust (whose title is due to a bogus certificate from America) ia discovered relating some particulars of his past life. His meditations are interrupted by a students' drinking song, which revives memories of the past and determines him to return to his old life. He summons his assistant, Mepheles (who has failed to take his degree and has sunk rather low in the social scale… (ibid, p.7).

The same critic goes to to suggests that the mainspring in the fun lies among the incongruities, for we which we have costumes ranging from the antique picturesque to the modern grotesque, and the mingling of these in occasional groupins has a mirth-provoking effect… Altogether Faust and Gretchen passed off remarkably well, and smoothly enough to show that it had been carefully rehearsed" (ibid, p.7).