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Opera Britannia, 11 December 2011 |
Mark Pullinger |
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Gounod: Faust, Metropolitan Opera New York, ab 29. November 2011, Vorstellung am 10. Dezember 2011, Kino |
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Faust: The Metropolitan Opera, New York, 10th December 2011
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‘Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are
debating the best way to use it.’ Turn the scientist into Faust – his field
of study nuclear physics – the devil into a dapper, white-suited gent and
the angels into lab-coated technicians with clipboards and you have the
basis of Des McAnuff’s updating of Gounod’s Faust. Nobody was hugely
surprised that English National Opera’s recent Eugene Onegin played on the
safe side, seeing that it’s destined for the stage of the Metropolitan
Opera, New York. Yet this controversial production of Faust, traditionally
seen as something of a sturdy Victorian warhorse, is from the same ENO
stable. I entirely missed its run at the Coliseum, so came to it afresh via
this Met cinema screening. Transported to a mid-20th century laboratory
where Faust is an aged atomic scientist, regretting his life’s work,
McAnuff’s staging is cold, clinical and ultimately confused, but can still
pack a powerful dramatic punch at certain moments.
The director’s
concept initially seemed to have legs. Faust as a Robert Oppenheimer-type
figure, wearing a heavy guilt complex at his creation, wishes for death and
reaches for a bottle of poison. In Gounod’s original, he is averted by the
sudden appearance of Méphistophélès; here he takes the poison and what
follows turns out to be his deathbed hallucinations, transported back to his
youth, which is now set in the First World War.
After signing the
devilish pact, Faust becomes Méphistophélès’ Doppelgänger; they dress
identically (apart from him sporting a white rose to the devil’s red) from
white suits and Panama hats to dinner jackets to pin-stripes. The atomic
bomb imagery completely disappears until Méphistophélès curses Marguerite in
church, where lab technicians take on the role of the angelic choir and we
get a huge mushroom cloud projected onto the backdrop. After Marguerite’s
ascent to heaven, via a giant staircase, we witness Faust’s final breath,
accompanied by a nuclear flash. Yet how we’re supposed to relate the horrors
of Faust the atomic scientist to Marguerite’s fate is tricky. What her
pregnancy and redemption have to do with Faust’s angst about his scientific
work is never made clear. Surely the whole point of Gounod’s Faust is a
religious one; good versus evil, angels and demons, redemption and
damnation, but throwing science into the mix, albeit retaining the religious
iconography, muddies the dramatic waters.
McAnuff’s handling of the
WW1 setting included some deft touches; Marguerite no longer spins, but sews
at her Singer sewing machine. The Soldiers’ chorus sees troops returning
from the horrors of the trenches; posing for a photographer, the flashbulb
sets off shellshock in one poor victim. Peter Mumford’s lighting and Sean
Nieuwenhuis’ video projections (a favourite ENO trick at present) dominate
the staging, adding colour but not warmth to Robert Brill’s tiered,
monochrome sets, where two spiral staircases frame the stage. We see roses
bloom, blue skies and numerous projections of Marguerite, who appears before
her allotted entrance first via video, then as a lab technician in old
Faust’s laboratory. Given their later (earlier) appearance as angels, is she
supposed to be one of the heavenly host sent to watch over Faust? Her
appearance is otherwise mysterious at this point as she isn’t acknowledged
by any of the other characters.
Méphistophélès has a few magic tricks
up his sleeve too – he turns the water cooler into a red wine dispenser and
sparks flash from his fingertips on his first entry. His demons appear like
zombies, but are perhaps meant to be victims of a nuclear attack. He appears
shocked by the sudden appearance of a giant puppet of the Grim Reaper, but
it’s unclear why. Surely Death follows Méphistophélès around like a shadow?
The Walpurgis Night scene is let down by the non-appearance of the ‘ladies
of antiquity’ mentioned in the libretto. Just where had Cleopatra and pals
got to? Instead, a pair of eyes dominates the backdrop, eventually revealed
to belong to Marguerite. At the end of the Church scene (placed last in Act
IV), Marguerite swiftly gives birth to her child and drowns it in the font,
though as we are still in a lab setting, that font is merely a sink. It’s a
good dramatic touch, all but completely spoiled by the addition of wailing
baby noises, which just drew titters from the audience.
The
trio of stars assembled for this production sounded on top form for most of
the night. Forgiving the fact that his Old Faust looked like a
prematurely-aged Omar Sharif as Dr Zhivago, Jonas Kaufmann sang gloriously
in the title role. His heavily baritonal tenor had sufficient weight, while
his steely top gleams and glints. It was a pity that he chose to belt out
the top C in ‘Salut! demeure chaste et pure’ instead of beginning softly, as
on his Decca recording of the aria. Once or twice, he came dangerously close
to crooning, but his diminuendo in the finale of Act II was breath-taking,
as was the exquisite ppp on ‘éternelle’ in the love duet with Marina
Poplavskaya’s Marguerite. Dramatically, however, he was strangely detached
and uncharismatic, especially early on, which surprised me as he is usually
extremely strong on characterisation. On the evidence of the waltz, his
dancing wouldn’t earn many points on Strictly either!
Poplavskaya is a terrific actress and she demonstrated the huge
transformation in Marguerite’s character with great skill. As previously
seen in London, she ‘does mad/ delusional’ extremely well. Vocally, she was
secure on her shimmering top notes, although there was an element of
brittleness and ever so careful placement about them, while her tone can be
inconsistent. French diction was, naturally enough, tinged with Slavic
undertones. She delivered the spinning ballad about the king of Thule
beautifully and her Jewel Song was coquettish, with dizzying coloratura,
although McAnuff didn’t give her anything much to actually do. Indeed, his
direction in the big arias was disappointing – Méphistophélès’ ‘Le veau
d’or’ was something of a non-event. She got to wear some pretty frumpy
frocks, courtesy of Paul Tazewell. Shorn of her golden locks as the
imprisoned Marguerite of the final act, Poplavskaya’s portrayal was
gripping.
The devil may not always get the best tunes via Gounod’s
pen, but René Pape dominated proceedings from the off. His gentleman-devil
was the suave, affable kind, seeming to have enormous fun with the role.
Pape’s Méphistophélès is very close to Bryn Terfel’s in phrasing and tone,
although he possesses a blacker bass to plumb the depths vocally to
effortless effect. I didn’t feel an enormous sense of danger from his devil,
however, until the church scene, where his black mood matched his bass
voice. In ‘O nuit, étends sur eux ton ombre’ he delivered a commanding,
seductive call for night to envelop the lovers. ‘Vous qui faites l’endormie’
had the heavy sarcasm required, though less of the demonic laughter
expected.
As Valentin, Marguerite’s brother, Russell Braun was very
fine. His aria ‘Avant de quitter ces lieux’, arguably the opera’s greatest
number, was impressive, Braun coping with the long-breathed legato
admirably, although his vibrato is troubling. He and Kaufmann also managed a
pretty convincing sword fight and he delivered a touching death scene as
well. Michèle Losier was a charming Siébel and Jonathan Beyer was splendid
in the brief role of Wagner.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin is making
impressions everywhere these days. Swiftly after the curtain dropped on this
matinee performance, he was dashing off to conduct the Philadelphia
Orchestra as their soon-to-be Music Director and he’s in demand on both
sides of the Atlantic. It’s easy to hear why – he drew elegant playing from
the Met Orchestra, with finessed phrasing and transparent balancing of
different departments. Once or twice, as in ‘Salut!’ and the love duet, he
tended to slam the brakes too hard, but generally this was an impressive
account of Gounod’s score. On the basis of this, I’d love to hear him
conduct Ravel’s L'Enfant et les sortilèges, or Massenet’s operas.
Your reaction to McAnuff’s production will depend on whether you want what
is occasionally gripping theatre or a treacly Victorian relic? How far is
his clinical staging at odds with the lush, romantic music? Which serves
Gounod’s music better is arguable, as is McAnuff believe about whether the
plot is about Christian salvation or not. You could argue that Gounod’s
music doesn’t sit comfortably alongside shell-shocked soldiers and nuclear
bombs, but when music and staging combine effectively, as in Mephisto’s
condemnation of Marguerite in the church scene, it works very well indeed.
For those who complain that Met productions are safe and dull, this is the
perfect riposte.
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