Musically, at least, the Royal Opera hits the jackpot with its star-studded new production. Antonio Pappano and his ROH orchestra make magic of Gounod’s insistently memorable melodies and his evocative orchestration — the usually cut Act IV ballet interlude is restored, and it’s a treat to hear it delivered with such elegance, panache and brio — and the management has opened its chequebook wide to field a cast that few international houses could equal today. Roberto Alagna is the youth-seeking doctor, his wife, Angela Gheorghiu, the ingénue victim of his lust, Marguérite, Bryn Terfel their diabolical nemesis, Méphistophélès, and Simon Keenlyside Valentin. It is a glamorous night at Covent Garden, recalling the galactic line-ups of the Solti and (early) Colin Davis eras in Bow Street. Tickets, needless to say, are like gold dust, but for those unable to get them, the house opened its doors to the cameras last night for a live relay on both television and the big screen on the piazza.
At the premiere (June 11), the audience erupted after most of the singers had delivered their hit numbers and, apart from one solitary boo after the ballet — a tasteless parody of the “white act” of Adolphe Adam’s ballet Giselle, in which Marguérite, pregnant by Faust, is manhandled by her companions, who also dig up the body of her dead brother, Valentin — seemed delighted with David McVicar’s production. I wish I could share their enthusiasm. McVicar’s vision of Faust’s Walpurgisnacht is, admittedly, the nadir of an evening of hideously dated theatrical kitsch, but it’s hard to see how Faust will survive in revival unless the ROH can attract patrons who like their Faust vulgarised as a low-budget Phantom of the Opera.
McVicar’s new-found penchant for cheap spectacle and moth-eaten operatic ham is particularly depressing when one considers his brilliantly austere and focused work for Opera North (Sweeney Todd), Scottish Opera (Idomeneo) and ENO (The Rape of Lucretia). With an evidently lavish budget, he encourages his designers, Charles Edwards (sets) and Brigitte Reiffenstuelm (costumes), to throw plenty of arresting visual ideas at Faust, but they are indiscriminately applied. Some strike the mark — I loved the sight of Terfel presiding over the Walpurgisnacht in tiara and black lamé ball-gown drag — but mostly, it is desperate overkill: scantily clad tumblers hogging the Kermesse scene, the delicious waltz choreographed as a tacky nightclub routine, with a chorus line wiggling their bums synchronically, and, above all, the vile Act IV ballet. Gounod’s opera sinks under the weight of this ghastly fiesta of Grand Guignol camp.
At least there is the music, conducted with grace and elemental vigour, and the singing is pretty terrific, although Alagna’s tone now sounds grey and dry (not inappropriate for the prologue, when Faust appears as a wizened old man). But he grows in vocal vigour and his French is wonderfully clear and poetic, a luxurious rarity today. He may not be subtle, but he hits most of the G-for-Gounod spots. Gheorghiu is an unlikely innocent — she looks like a tart in her appearance at McVicar’s Cabaret Enfer — and her dirty-girl, Carmen voice sounds wrong for the Jewel Song and Garden duet, but she comes into her own, soaring with quasi-religious ecstasy in the Prison trio. Terfel is Terfel, which means his Mephisto is almost a carbon copy of his Don Giovanni, charismatic but coarse-grained, and he lacks ideally resonant bass notes. Keenlyside is the vocal and histrionic star of the show as Valentin — a superb performance. Sophie Koch sings nicely as Siébel, but is saddled by McVicar, for some inexplicable reason, with a wooden leg (and a bicycle!). C’est une idée — but not a very good one. Della Jones rasps gamely as the brothel madam, Marthe Schwerlein (Marguérite’s chaperone, or pimp, here).
Musically on a much lower plane, Holland Park’s opening production of Bellini’s Norma is a no less dispiriting opera-as-theatre experience. Mike Ashman’s ponderous village-hall staging is hard to square as the work of the same man who directed the best Parsifal I have seen (WNO, 1983) and an intellectually stimulating Flying Dutchman at Covent Garden (1986). Bellini’s opera may be a tougher nut to crack: it’s certainly harder to cast today than most Wagner. Holland Park must have thought it had pulled off a coup when Nelly Miricioiu agreed to sing the title role (which she sang in concert at the ROH in 2000), but the Romanian cult diva sounded way past her best and was easily outsung by the fabulous Adalgisa of Diana Montague, a mezzo whose neglect by our mainstream companies fills me with rage and despair. She is several cuts above some of the mediocrities who get star billing nowadays at ENO. Despite being over 40, she looks beautiful and slim, and moves like a 25-year-old. The production is worth catching just for Montague, but the alert playing of the City of London Sinfonia under Brad Cohen’s spry baton gives pleasure, too — Bellini’s score is one of the miracles of romantic opera and I was delighted to hear it again, even in less than ideal circumstances.
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Don’t miss the interactive feature on Faust on June’s The Month CD-Rom