BWW Reviews: Deal or No Deal, Dutch National Opera's FAUST Is Damned

Even with its visions of damnation and redemption, Gounod's FAUST, with libretto by Barbier and Carre, is pretty tame stuff. In the wrong hands, it can be dull as well. Well, you can't accuse the Dutch National Opera's new production--by Barcelona's Alex Ollé and the theatre company La Fura dels Baus--of being "dull," with its prosthetic breasts, Barbie doll chorus and simulated sex. But despite the best efforts of the cast, and a high level of singing from American tenor Michael Fabiano (the winner of the 2014 Richard Tucker Award and the Met's Beverly Sills Artist Award) and his Russian costars soprano Irina Lungu and bass Mikhail Petrenko, you can't call it "good" either.

A Top 50 Opera

FAUST was #34 on the list of the most performed operas in the world during the 2012-13 season as compiled by operabase.com--which the British newspaper, The Guardian, calls a "fantastically complete database"--right behind DAS RHEINGOLD and ahead of TALES OF HOFFMANN. It is the second-most-performed opera in French, with only CARMEN ahead of it. Massenet's operas (MANON, WERTHER and the like) didn't even make the top 50. Of course, it doesn't say how many people actually stayed awake during the 118 performances of the work that year.

I guess, that's why companies call in directors like Ollé for a new take on the story. Unfortunately, while he seems to have plenty of ideas, Ollé doesn't seem to have much respect for the work. (Interestingly, the program gives a synopsis of the original story and not the setting of this production, at "the Homunculus Project at the Amsterdam high performance center." I'm not kidding--although, thanks to Google, I found out that there is such a project, in Albuquerque at least, focusing on the development of virtual reality and visualization.) He's turned the title character into something of a Dr. Frankenstein, but forgot to tell Fabiano, in the title role, what to do with it. This Faust just trails Méphistophèlés (Petrenko), who's a kind of rock star in leather pants, like a lost puppy. The only truly interesting touch was to end the opera with Faust and the devil dressed in identical outfits, as if merged into a single character. The scenic design by Alfons Flores, lighting by Lluc Castells and costumes by Urs Schönebaum fill out the director's vision, but don't do much for the opera.

Beautiful and secure

Fabiano showed off a beautiful, secure voice and scaled the heights of his "Top Tenor Hits" aria, "Salut! Demeure chaste et pure" to its high C, but would need a better director (and production) to show off what he could really do with the part. The director improved somewhat with Lungu as Marguerite, who showed the flowering and decline of the character quite well; but I've never heard the Jewel Song ("Ah! je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir") so well sung as it was by Lungu, shimmering and bright, yet have so little effect because of the staging. Of the principals, Petrenko seemed to have the most fun, creating a most vivid character, by turns arrogant, vulgar and suave. He did well in the big "Le veau d'or" aria but I found his voice a little small-scale for the part, though I seemed to be in a minority.

The supporting roles were very strongly cast. Baritone Florian Sempey's Valentin was resonantly sung, particularly in "Avant de quitter ces lieux." In the pants role of Siebel, mezzo Marianne Crebassa was marvelous, with a charming "Faites-lui mes aveux." Mezzo Doris Lamprecht, as Marthe, wrung the laughs out of her scene with Méphistophèlés and maintained her dignity despite her outlandish prosthetic chest (no small accomplishment). The Chorus of the Dutch National Opera, under Ching-Lien Wu, filled a vast variety of roles, including students, soldiers, matrons, witches, courtesans and celestial voices, with great elan.

Into the pool

When I walked into the opera house, I was surprised by the size of the orchestra pit, which had the dimensions of an Olympic-sized pool. What could possibly fill it? The Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Dutch National Opera's "pit band," under Marc Minkowski, added a thrilling aspect of the production, showing amazing subtlety and range, while never overpowering the singers for a moment, despite its size. And that sound! (Did they make a deal with the devil too?)

I freely admit that FAUST can be a hard slog and I'm not averse to some director taking a bold stab at it. I would go so far to posit that if there's any opera in the mainstream repertoire that needs it, FAUST would be at the top of my list. But this production isn't it.

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Photo: Soprano Irina Lungu (Marguerite) and tenor Michael Fabiano (Faust)

Photo by Ruth Walz.

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