Gounod’s Faust is the sort of opera that gives the genre a bad
name. Its libretto is based on a play that takes Part 1 of
Goethe’s original mystical morality tale and encrusts it with
dowdy Victoriana and shifts the focus to the tortures inflicted
on poor Marguerite whose eventual redemption hardly seems
a
fair consolation in today’s secular world; the lovely music
coats a bitter pill that takes quite an effort to swallow.
Des McAnuff’s production attempts to restore some of the
original’s dramatic gravitas by shifting the opening scene to
the Los Alamos laboratories with Faust as a tortured atomic
scientist. The arresting imagery during the overture gave an
initial frisson so I looked forward to further clever analogies
but apart from the obvious effects during the Walpurgisnacht
they failed to materialise so the concept proved to be only
half-baked. There were other fine visual moments such as the
giant project images of Marguerite’s face but the unit set of
Faust’s laboratory didn’t seem to be used to its full potential
and my attention wandered.
Musically however, one
couldn’t ask for more with a splendid cast of singing actors
doing their best to sell the piece. Kaufmann is simply
magnificent with his trademark burnished tone ramping up the
contrast of his heroic sound with his caddish persona.
Poplavskaya was born to play Marguerite with her girlish look
and tragic demeanour. Some may quibble with her slight vocal
imperfections but her performance is all of a piece. The
Wagnerian Pape has a ball playing Mephistopheles but doesn’t
descend into moustache-twirling camp and delivers a
show-stopping Ronde du Veau d’or. The supporting cast is fine
with a standout Valentin and Nézet-Séguin shapes the whole with
idiomatic elegance and coaxes refined playing from the
orchestra. I watched the Blu-ray so the sound and image were of
exemplary quality.