Some people boo when they are displeased with an opera performance. I just pick up my hoop skirt and leave the building. Yes, I know it’s a most passive-aggressive form of protest but it’s how a deal with disappointment. And, mon dieu, am I disappointed…no, I think “bitter” is a better word. Faust is one of my favorite operas and, surprisingly, since it supposedly a “non-repertory” work, I’ve seen it staged often. Yet, to see such a Faust at the Metropolitan Opera tonight… at the opera house once dubbed “Faustspielhaus”…well, this Fanatic had to leave after Act II or throw myself off the balcony in despair. I feel insulted. In the words of silent screen siren Lina Lamont: “What do you think I am, dumb or somethin’?”
Faust……………….Robert Alagna
Marguerite…………..Angela Gheorghiu
Méphistophélès……….James Morris
Valentin…………….Dwayne Croft, Act I
Valentin…………….Mark Oswald, Act III
Siebel………………Katarina Karnéus
Marthe………………Catherine Cook
Wagner………………Alfred Walker
Conductor……………Bertrand de Billy
Where do I begin???
Marguerite doesn’t live in a g**-d*** tree! She’s no nature girl living on the edge of the forest as the Rolf Langenfass production would have us believe. At any moment, I expected Kanga & Roo to stop at Marguerite’s place for some honeyt! The Act I village is, in fact, Hans Sachs’ street covered in a mudslide! The production looks like a Sid & Marty Kroft reject. I knew I had to leave before the Banana Splits began taunting poor Marguerite in the church scene. I could have taken an abstract Robert Wilson Faust better than the non-sense witnessed tonight on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. Burn it.
The chorus was woefully ragged and seemed to be stage-blocked by my high school drama teacher. The conductor Bertrand de Billy missed the Wagnerian elements of the score — unfortunately, the maestro missed every other musical element as well. His style wasn’t opera-comique nor was it even satirical of
Gounod’s score. It was simply charmless, clunky, and clueless.
Angela Gheorghiu outshone all others on the stage this evening. She almost made it worth staying for the entire opera. Gheorghiu is a commmitted actress in fine voice. Yet, she was totally out-of-place in this Faust-Meets-H.R.Puffenstuff production. No matter how good she was, or how hard she tried –she just didn’t fit in: like Joan Crawford cast as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, for example. In one of those bizarro opera universe twists, Ruth Ann Swenson, a good Marguerite for this production, is singing Violetta on-stage at the Met during this Faust production’s off-nights while Angela Gheorghiu, a much-lauded Violetta, is saddled singing Marguerite. Who’s doing the casting at the Met these days…Mephistopheles?
Oh, Mephistopheles was James Morris. I figure that the opera Faust and James Morris have been on-stage at the Met for approximately the same tally of performances. Luckily, for my love of the opera, Faust has been spread out over 120 years while Morris has been equally ubiquitous in just 25 short years. The opera has worn better. I’ve enjoyed Morris’ Don Carlo and Wotan but what ones forgives in a Wotan becomes
unforgivable in a Mephistopheles. Simply put, he can’t do justice to this role at this stage in his career.
Roberto Alagna was adequate but, frankly, the special-ness has worn off the voice. In Alagna’s current vocal state, his Faust is no better nor worse than a dozen other Fausts the Met could have fielded. Another tenor crumbles before our eyes.
When put on the stage with charm or intelligence, Faust can be the most beautiful of operas and, sometimes, even the most profound. Tonight at the Metropolitan Opera, Faust was neither. A sad commentary indeed when provincial Austin Lyric Opera can field a more rewarding Faust than the preeminent opera company in
America.