Romeo and Juliet is awash in all of these qualities, especially in its unstoppable melody. He was the dean of this new French sound and highly regarded for his pure lines, impeccable taste, and musical sensitivity. But his lyric style with its almost conversational quality influenced them all. His lush, lyrical music went out of fashion during his own lifetime when the more muscular Saint-Saens, more emotional Massenet, the deceptively simple Fauré, then the more impressionistic Ravel and Debussy came to the fore. He had just completed its orchestration when a massive stroke killed him in 1893. His last work was a Requiem Mass written for his grandson who had died young. He turned to liturgical music with masses, oratorios, and scared songs, along with profane ones, too, and seemed most content with those.
Although he was a much beloved icon in French music, his other stage works flopped as soon as they premiered.
It was his adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1867),with libretto from the busiest stage writers in Second Empire France, Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, that was Gounod's one smash hit for the opera stage. All that international acclaim for Faust came later. His music publisher Choudens reaped the monetary awards. Justly celebrated today for his devilishly entertaining Faust (1859), Charles Gounod made little profit from this beloved classic and never saw his opera take off into the stratosphere during his lifetime.
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