Performances in Germany followed, with Dresden Semperoper in 1861 being the first to bill the work as "Margarethe" rather than "Faust". For many years this custom – or alternatively, staging the opera as "Gretchen" – continued in Germany. Some sources claim this was out of respect for part 1 of Goethe's poetic drama, which the opera follows closely. Others claim the opposite: that the retitling was done to emphasise Gounod's opera's reliance on Goethe's characters, and to differentiate it from Louis Spohr's "Faust", which had held the stage for many years in Germany and had recently appeared (1851) in a three-act revision. It is also possible that the 1861 Dresden title change was out of respect for Spohr's close and long association with the city.