ABSTRACT
One of the earliest titles of The Master and Margarita was “Here I am!” (“Vot i ya”),1 which is the first phrase uttered by Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust.2 There are many links, some even parodic, between the two works, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that Bulgakov’s novel should in its turn have provided the inspiration for an opera libretto.
