Critics Round-up: the Royal Opera’s Faust

Gounod’s Faust is, on the one hand, a gift for dir­ect­ors and per­formers — as Geoff Brown says in The Times, “It’s a Cecil B De Mille film dir­ec­ted by Bob Fosse, and Hell on Earth in more ways than one” — but it can often inspire pro­duc­tions so over the top with racy ideas and cut-out vil­lains that an audi­ence couldn’t care less about the char­ac­ters on stage. David McVicar’s pro­duc­tion is one of these, accord­ing to the Fin­an­cial Times’ Richard Fairman:

The pro­du­cer, David McVicar, deliv­ers a tra­di­tional show at heart. There is an over­all concept – Faust rep­res­ents the aged Gounod, torn between the theatre and the church, and wit­ness­ing the clos­ing years of the Second Empire in France – but it feels lazily worked out and rather too sus­cept­ible to kitsch. Bring on the semi-naked dev­ils and the cross-dressing Méph­is­tophélès and the camp quota ticks up pretty high.

But not every­one is in agree­ment. Igor Toronyi-Lalic, writ­ing for The Arts Desk, thought the oppos­ite, and was moved by the pro­duc­tion. But how can that be, he asks, with “Gounod’s curdled Vic­torian dessert of an opera, an over­whipped mélange of melo­drama and miso­gyny, topped with grand 19th-century dol­lops of reli­gi­os­ity.” He knows why:

That Faust achieves a level of pro­fund­ity that at one stage nearly had me in tears is an abso­lute mir­acle. The mir­acle work­ers? David McVicar, whose revival pro­duc­tion is unlikely to be bettered, and a clutch of leads that you’d nor­mally need a pact with the devil — or at least a very amen­able bank man­ager — to bring together.

As Rupert Chris­ti­ansen in The Tele­graph points out in his 5-star review,

Nowadays it’s fash­ion­able to sneer at Gounod’s Faust as a prime cut of sen­ti­mental Vic­tori­an­ism. But if you can’t enjoy a per­form­ance as full-blooded as this one, then I fear you haven’t got the point of opera at all.

So who were the other mir­acle work­ers? Well, everyone’s favour­ite seemed to be Vit­torio Grigolo,

Grigolo’s hand­some, big-voiced Faust, avid for exper­i­ence and cata­stroph­ic­ally mis­tak­ing desire for affec­tion, is won­der­fully con­vin­cing and sung with sweep­ing, palp­able urgency.

said Tim Ash­ley for The Guard­ian. Fair­man was in com­plete agreement,

Grigolo is the new white hope among young Italian ten­ors and it is easy to see why. As the reju­ven­ated Faust, he exudes both puppy-dog enthu­si­asm and the know-how to get his star qual­ity to shine. Just occa­sion­ally he over-sings. But for most of the opera, Grigolo makes sure his bright, Itali­anate self-confidence is shaded with subtle French vari­ety and impec­cable artistry.

The Inde­pend­ent was con­cerned about the over-singing too:

He’s put­ting the voice under more and more pres­sure and it’s surely a tell-tale sign that the high C of his Romance in the third act was, by neces­sity, pushed in full-voice rather than caressed in head-voice. He’s not the first and won’t be the last to miss the point of that moment. But there’s no deny­ing his vocal and phys­ical cha­risma – I just won­der how long he can go on singing like this.

Barry Mil­ling­ton for The Even­ing Stand­ard loved Grigolo, but as he said,

On paper it looked a near-unbeatable line-up, though at this uncon­ven­tional Sunday mat­inée not all the stars shone equally brightly.

So who wasn’t twink­ling? Angela Ghe­orghiu as Mar­guer­ite accord­ing to most reviewers.

Mar­guer­ite is one of Gheorghiu’s finest roles, although she has sung it bet­ter than on this occa­sion, where she got off to an under­powered start, then gave us an impre­cise account of the Jewel Song.

com­men­ted Ash­ley, and Brown agreed,

Gheorghiu’s bless­ings were more mixed. For a diva, girl­ish­ness doesn’t come easy. She fur­ther smudged Mar­guer­ite with muffled artic­u­la­tion and indif­fer­ent French.

Though it was a mixed per­form­ance it was, finally, a con­vin­cing one, said Brown,

Then, out from the clouds, came top notes that were as fierce as the blaz­ing sun. In the last scene in prison, blonde wig shorn, her act­ing was riv­et­ing, with Mar­guer­ite pious in the face of sal­va­tion, but twitch­ing and smil­ing like a creature unhinged.

Chris­ti­ansen echoed his thoughts,

She is still unsure of her words, still lack­ing in sparkle in the Jewel song, and still uncom­fort­able with some lower-lying pas­sages. For all that (and sev­eral other small prima donna sins), she is very fine in express­ing the character’s lyr­ical heart, and I can’t stay cross for long with any sop­rano who spins such creamy legato and warmly res­in­ous timbre.

And The Daily Express was in no doubt,

Hers truly is one of the great voices of the age.

Hvorostovsky’s Valentin was liked by Fairman,

Dmitri Hvorostovsky gives Valentin everything he has and, though the aria lacked Gal­lic grace, his singing car­ried quite a punch.

The Inde­pend­ent said,

…expens­ive cast­ing but value for money and then some in the res­ol­utely long lines of his showstop­ping aria.

And Chris­ti­ansen didn’t hold back with his praise,

Dmitri Hvorostovsky will also rank with the legends: his Valentin was marked by impec­cable tech­nical con­trol and a grip­ping death scene.

Which leaves the baddy: René Pape was Méphistophélès.

René Pape was simply mag­ni­fi­cent as Mephis­topheles, his vocal power, his­tri­onic author­ity and sly wit put­ting him in the Chaliapin league.

said Chris­ti­ansen who was obvi­ously hav­ing a won­der­ful even­ing. Fair­man was glad to have the oppor­tun­ity to hear the Ger­man bass who is rarely heard in London.

Hear­ing his majestic voice in a major role here is a great pleas­ure, while his play­ing of the char­ac­ter makes up in author­ity what it lacks in sat­urnine charisma.

And Ash­ley wrote,

It’s hard to ima­gine Mephistopheles’s music more beau­ti­fully sung. Dra­mat­ic­ally, how­ever, he’s stronger on malevol­ence than on irony or wit, which makes him more effect­ive as the tor­mentor of the final scenes than the insi­di­ous charmer of the opera’s opening.

Con­ductor Evelino Pidò was also admired.

Much praise is also due to Evelino Pido, who con­duc­ted with tre­mend­ous rel­ish and stopped the undeni­able soupi­ness in the score from turn­ing glutinous.

said Chris­ti­ansen. And Ash­ley added,

Con­ductor Evelino Pidò drives it hard, but is also nicely sen­sual when the music needs it.

So it seems that the Royal Opera House have another tri­umph to shout about. As Fair­man says,

Opera-goers whose memor­ies stretch back to Faust in 1977, and the unfor­get­table line-up of Freni, Kraus, Allen and Ghi­aurov, may well rank 2011 as an equally fine vintage.

Faust con­tin­ues at the Royal Opera House until 10 October

Pho­tos:  © ROH / Cath­er­ine Ashmore

 

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