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La locandina

Faust	Juan Diego Flórez
Marguerite	Nicole Car
Méphistophèles	Adam Palka
Valentin	Étienne Dupuis
Siébel	Kate Lindsey
Marthe	Monica Bohinec
Wagner	Martin Hässler
Conductor	Bertrand de Billy
Stage Director	Frank Castorf
Scenes	Aleksandar Denić
Costumes	Adriana Braga Peretzki
Lighting design	Lothar Baumgarte
Video Director	Martin Andersson
Dramaturgy	Ann-Christine Mecke
Wiener Staatsoper Orchestra and Chorus

 

When the Wiener Staatsoper announced that its new production of Gounod’s Faust was going to be broadcasted in a live stream in its webpage, in Ö1 and in ORF III, the aspect that attracted the most was the superb cast and conductor that would perform this jewel of the French repertory. It was the role debut of Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez as Faust, a welcome new addition to his list of French roles that he has already done such as Roméo, Hoffmann and Werther. Australian soprano Nicole Car sang the role of Marguerite (which would have been her official debut in Vienna, but her debut happened weeks before because she jumped in to perform Tatiana in a performance of Eugene Onegin, which also had a livestream). Her husband, baritone Étinne Dupuis sang the role of Valentin, Marguerite’s brother, mezzosoprano Kate Lindsey was luxury casting as Siébel and young bass Adam Palka sang the role of Méphistophélès. Mezzosopano Monica Bohinec was Marthe and Martin Hässler sung Wagner.

Let’s talk first about the excellent musical interpretation that saved this performance of Faust. Tenor Juan Diego Flórez was a very elegant Faust, singing with his usual beautiful phrasing, clear diction and effortless legato. His Faust was in the style of Alain Vanzo or Alfredo Kraus, with a pure tone and always making nuances that enriched his musical performance. His “Salut! demeure chaste et pure” was exquisitely sung, showing the young Faust’s longing for Marguerite. There was a lot of chemistry with Nicole Car’s Marguerite and their act III duet “Il se fait tard!… O nuit d’amour…” was one of the vocal highlights of the performance. As a character, Faust was the only one in Castorf’s concept that didn’t change much from the one portrayed in Gounod’s opera. Flórez acted also very well, showing an aged Faust that suffered from shaky hands. He looked like a homeless rabbi and its transformation to young Faust was rather careless (he just took off his wig and beard in sight). He looked dashing and acted the role as a rather predatory, lustful man who just wanted to have his fun with Marguerite. At the end of the opera, Faust (as a character) got lost in the action and it was Marguerite who got the spotlight.

Nicole Car had the challenge of performing Marguerite in Castorf’s very arguable vision; she had to play her as a woman who has been around quite a lot, like a prostitute who has been with many men (an idea that completely ruins the image of Marguerite as the figure of purity within the plot). Her act III costume seemed more apt for a character from Stephen Sondheim’s Follies or for the courtesan Thaïs than for a young, naïve girl in love. Vocally, Car’s voice is turning darker and meatier in the middle range and she has velvety, ringing high notes. Her “Air de Bijoux” was well sung, portraying the ingenue Marguerite that the music asks for and using her expressive eyes to illustrate her character’s joy when trying on the jewels; her voice blended beautifully with Flórez’s in the act III duet. She has the vocal chops to do a very intense and dramatic scene with Méphistophélès in act IV at the ‘church’ and the sweetness to give the character all the nuances needed within the music, especially in act III. Car was also very moving in her act IV aria “Il ne revient pas”.

Marguerite is the only character in the opera that has a true evolution from young maiden in love to a strong, yet victimized, woman who has lost everything thanks to her relationship with Faust. At the end, in this production, she doesn’t go to Heaven and she is not pardoned by the angels or by God; she just goes back to the bar where she met Faust for the first time, drinks a glass of champagne, gets some drugs and continues with her life. A very anticlimactic ending, taking away any idea of redemption.

Bass Adam Palka was a charming Méphistophélès, singing with a dark, cavernous voice, portraying the Devil more like a vampire/voodoo sorcerer. He transformed Faust from old to young by drinking his blood, in the style of Dracula. Visually, he looked more like an evil version of Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream or a faun, half goat, half man, with his arms full of tattoos. He also appeared with a bison-like headdress, as if to perform some kind of black sorcery. He sang a powerful “Le veau d’or” and blended well with Florez’s voice in their act I duet “A moi, les plaisirs…”.

Baritone Étienne Dupuis was a marvelous Valentin, singing with gorgeous tone, beautiful phrasing and intensity. He gave a masterclass of elegance in singing in his aria “Avant de quitter se lieux”. His character was a bit changed in the sense that he seemed to be a violent, angry man, yet very patriotic, and not the usual tender and caring brother that we are used to see. His fight with Faust for Marguerite’s honor was totally illogical; it was done with them pointing at each other with machine guns and then Méphistophélès kills Valentin from the back with a knife (backstage). Why is Valentin defending her sister’s honor if she already has been with lots of men? His death scene was extremely intense and moving thanks to Dupuis’s electrifying performance.

Mezzosoprano Kate Lindsey was luxury cast as Siébel who, in the original opera, is a young man in love with Marguerite who takes care of her while Valentin, his friend, is away in the war. In Castorf’s production, Siébel comes in dressed with Arabic garments, with his feet all covered with blood and then, Wagner washes Siébel’s feet (while Valentin sings his aria) and then he drinks the water with blood?! Minutes later we realize that Siébel is really a woman who is in love with Marguerite and who looks like Countess Geschwitz from Berg’s Lulu. She reads poetry by Baudelaire (“L’invitation au voyage”) to Marguerite and seems to be her closest confidant. Lindsey is a great actress and her singing was, as always, full of passion; her “Faites-lui mes aveux” was intense and one of her most touching moments came in act IV in her scene “Si le bonheur…” with Car’s Marguerite. Monica Bohinec was a funny, sexy Marthe, singing with her obscure timbre. In this production, she is not Marguerite’s nosy neighbour; she is a prostitute that works with her and who is also a friend of Siébel. Martin Hässler has a lovely voice and made the most of the short role of Wagner.

The wonderful conductor Bertrand de Billy led the chorus and orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper in this live performance (without an audience) with pure French style, brilliant sound, breathing with his singers and allowing the drama to unfold. He brings out the colors, nuances and beautiful melodies of the score with musical elegance.

Stage director Frank Castorf presented a very incoherent vision of Faust. He seems to be obsessed with portraying his female characters as fallen women, staging everything in a dark, grotesque environment, showing only decadence and criticizing capitalism. If you have already seen his production of Das Rheingold, you can have a perfect idea of what he has done with Gounod’s opera.

Castorf is part of the now tiresome trend of “innovation” and reinterpretation of operas where you feel that the music and the libretto are telling you one story and the production is telling something completely different. Adapting operas is very welcomed but why do we have to suffer, as an audience, this constant trend of stage directors who just force their own ‘concept’ to a story that has nothing to do with what they want to show onstage? It seems that, in recent years, the qualities that a production has to have to be considered ‘innovative’, ‘interesting’ or ‘fresh’ are: a decadent atmosphere, vulgar aesthetics, ugly modern clothing, sex scenes or sexually charged moments, lots of blood, political statements or personal views of the world from the stage director which have nothing to do with the plot of the opera and narrative arches that never quite close at the end of the show. Reading the subtitles is not an option anymore because most of the things and actions that they narrate do not happen on stage as told in what you are reading.

As said before, Castorf’s visual production of Faust looks a lot like his production of Das Rheingold from Bayreuth. A building’s structure that rotates and has several rooms or small scenarios (the church, a café, the metro Stalingrad, Marguerite’s room, Mephisto’s den with a big snake) with two screens (left and right of the stage), where we see live projections of what is happening on stage which is being filmed by two cameramen dressed in black who are walking around the singers and filming in closeups many ‘crucial’ moments of the plot. Very distractive for the audience and even for the singers, who sometimes were singing their arias or duets and, in the background, the two screens projected scenes where you saw what the other characters were doing ‘off-stage’ or who was coming in and out of the stage. In other cases, they showed pre-recorded scenes with the singers in character, performing some scenes of what ‘happened’ before or during certain moments of the plot: for example, we do see the moment when Faust and Marguerite are making love (or rather Faust is raping her), or we see Valentin’s death backstage plus closeups of Siebel’s bloody feet or Méphistophélès in his den with his snake. Kudos to Car and Flórez for their professionalism when they had to act the scenes of sexual encounters between Faust and Marguerite with a camera guy filming them closely. Less is more and too many information or too many visuals can be too much for an audience to digest.

Castorf included a lot of ideas of colonialism and military cruelty in his staging, which have nothing to do with Gounod’s Faust and he sets the action of the plot in Paris during the time of the Algerian War (1954 - 1962). Being a time where different religions coincide in one city, he has Muslims, Christians and voodoo mixed withing the drama. For example: Valentin and the soldiers show the cross to Méphistophélès in act II, making the ‘devil’/vampire or voodoo sorcerer, twist and turn. A group of Muslim women, not the usual chorus of angels, sing to Marguerite “Christ est ressuscité” as she is ‘pardoned’ at the end.

Many scenes look quite foolish; the chorus in act II entered waving little flags with the ‘Coke Cola’ logo, dressed with horrible clothes and, during the Walpurgis night, they wore masks that seemed to be from a Mexican ‘Dia de Muertos’ (Day of the Death). It was laughable instead of scarry. Castorf wants to put so many of his ideas into the plot of this Faust and make so many statements that the performance ends up being a mash up of empty metaphors and illogical interpretations. Gounod’s larger-than-life beautiful score deserves more.

Paris did a livestream of their new production of Faust by Tobias Krätzer and, although it also had its illogical and dark elements, it was more faithful to Gounod’s vision. I can only remember two productions of Faust in recent years that adapted the story and yet, remained true to essence of the piece: the Aik Karapetian production for the Latvian National Opera and David McVicar’s 2004 production for the Royal Opera House.

When will we see again a production of Faust that is true to the libretto and visually beautiful to look at? Is ‘ugly, grotesque and illogical’ the only things that stage directors can do nowadays? Why is there no room for visually stunning stagings that follow the libretto? Thank God we had such excellent singers, conductor and the marvelous Orchestra and Chorus of the Wiener Staatsoper who made this performance worth watching!

The review is about the live streaming on 2021, April 29.

Ingrid Haas