Faust

Making a pact with the Devil is always interesting. Many composers, writers and dramaturges have proven so by creating many variations on the theme. Even more, this opera has been in the repertoire for a long time, and still thrills and delights audiences. There is drama in the action and certainly in the music, in particular Mephistopheles.This older McVicar production, from around 2010, is just great. Many scenes are on the darker side, but thanks to new technology and Blu-Ray recording, it comes perfectly on the TV screen. A really delight to watch.Singers and actors are up to the task in this production, Schrott excels in his role as the Devil, his singing is beautiful while is acting is quite convincing with some humor and sarcasm thrown into the mix.Overall, a very good production, a delight with great music, and even some morals to learn. Highly recommended.

Back in 2011 I reviewed the same ROH staging of this opera with Alagna, Georghiu and Terfel, and found it to be excellent. Now I can review the same production with a different cast and improved technology. I excels the earlier version in all relevant aspects.Michael Fabiano is vocally and dramatically superb. His production is even through the registers with a totally unforced passagio. I like the timbre of his voice better than that of Alagna, who, I think, evinces a bit of graininess.Lungu is a lovely Marguerite. Again, her production is smooth with a superb top.And what can I say about Erwin Schrott? He is certainly better than was Terfel, both vocally and, especially, dramatically. I mean, if one cannot portray the devil as ... well ... devilish, what use is the character?The biggest surprise for me, though, gentle reader, was the technology. I have seen and heard these singers before and I have seen Faust before, including this very staging, but not like this. WOW! With a good digital TV and a decent sound system, it is a wonderful experience.Every other aspect of this opera is first rate. Yes, I found the ballet (abbreviated) distasteful, but I never considered Hell as a vacation destination anyway.In sum, I have no reservations in recommending this one to prospective buyers

The music is outstandingly wonderful, and the singers are extremely good - but the production is just awful. There is a veneer of a traditional production in terms of costume and sets - at least there were no high-viz vests around! - but the obsession with ruining opera productions by giving them a weird, wonky edge of grotesquerie, in the name of bringing it up to date, is just revolting.And David McVicar is one of the worst at this - there is something so smug and arrogant, and pretentious about this type of operatic vandelism, which completely spoils the experience for some of us. Why can't people like MacVicar just leave things alone, and let be. This opera should be tragic and sinister - but not grotesque.I bought the dvd, because the music is so wonderful, and I wanted to watch it, but I shall be sending this dvd to the charity shop. I won't ever watch it again. There are some videos of older productions on YouTube which are better, but you can't always get them on dvd. I shall be content just to listen to the cd from now on.

This release is entertaining as a video, I mostly had a very enjoyable time watching it. It flows brilliantly dramatically and musically; the plot, dramatic situations and motivations driving the characters are clearly delineated.It seems the shortcomings of the singing do not detract much from enjoying this release. For the first hour or so I noted to myself with pleasure “healthy voices”, until Fabiano (Faust) switches gears from supported chest voice and hits his C5 at the conclusion of “Salut demeure” on the word “presence” (1:03:49 min on the blu-ray) with unsupported head-voice (when the singer has to use unsupported head-voice, any discussion of “the passagio”, gentle reader, is moot, because this passagio is a dead end that requires a gear switch to move the voice up). This C5 is not in mixed head-voice, sorry, this is falsetto. I cringed here, and when a little later Lungu (Marguerite) starts her “Jewel Song” with no trill (like so many other sopranos) I had to take a break and pull various Faust sets from my shelves to make sure I was not overreacting. Once returning to watch this it remained enjoyable (except the ballet), but one needs to be honest about the singing.Only less than 2 years earlier Fabiano's voice had a gleam in his sound and could reach a (strained) C5 (e.g., 2017 ROH La bohème). Since then, the top has become frayed and the voice thins as it goes up, it lost its gleam, there is now no metal/squillo. His B4 on the third "je t'aime" after he first meets Marguerite (48:26 min in the blu-ray) sounds beyond the top of his range: it's flat and sounds like nails on chalkboard. The thinness of the top is particularly apparent in the ensembles and as he tires. We have another case of Villazon or Hymel here, though Fabiano's voice unravels more slowly rather than in one crisis like the other two.Lungu (Marguerite) is a little less bland than she is on the 2015 Noseda Faust blu-ray from Torino, mostly because she got more help from the director in the cutesiness department. There are certain roles that I feel coloraturas should not touch if they can’t trill (Gilda, Lucia, Marguerite, Ophélie ...umm... Brünhilde :-) for example), but there aren’t enough trilling canaries to fill demand for these roles. I would have much preferred Sabine Devieilhe (perfect coloratura, lots of character and The Queen of Trills) or Véronique Gens (a voice with a “face”; this is a voice you can’t forget) as Marguerite.Schrott (Méphistophélès) does not have the right voice type for the role, but his singing is impeccable and his charisma makes him the leading character in this production, easily overshadowing Fabiano, who has a more awkward stage presence. Any complaints about his constant mugging should be referred to the director. This performance was recorded and released only because of him.Stéphane Degout is one of the greatest French baritones of the last 120 years and his Valentin is excellent. His voice is a size smaller than that of the others, or rather, the others’ voices are a size larger than what this French opera calls for.I was impressed with mezzo Marta Fontanals-Simmons (Siébel), a more substantial voice than we are used to hear in this role, with a distinctive timbre. I look forward to her future engagements.Ettinger conducts with a verve that makes this long journey into hell and back very engaging. He also supports the singers, for example in the above-mentioned “Salut demeure”. IMHO his version is better conducted than Pappano's, though I am fully aware that the locals would view this statement as an inanity or even heresy. This type of irrational devotion to a music director is very common and is of no significance.The sound mix produced by the ROH sound engineers is very inconsistent. The mix here is good, but is not really open or natural. The house engineers produced both better mixes (e.g. 2017 La bohème) and worse (e.g. 2014 Manon Lescaut). The sets of course change the sound, but other teams get more consistent results irrespective of sets.The MET 2011 Faust blu-ray is much better sung (though Ettinger’s way with the score is more rewarding than YNS’), but is unpleasant to watch or make sense of. The Torino 2015 and the Salzburg 2016 Faust blu-rays are afflicted with annoying regies, non-trilling Marguerites and no singer that has Schrott’s star appeal. As far as DVD’s, there is nothing that compares to this release.My favorite Faust audio-only recordings are (in descending order) the Marston transfer of the Pathé cylinders from 1911/12 (this is the one I return to most often), the Andante transfer of the 1930 complete recording and the Marston transfer of the Beecham 1947/8 recording on Naxos. If we give up idiomatic French, the Cluytens I (1953) and II (1958) obviously take the lead. There is a lot to enjoy in the 1966 Bonynge/Corelli/Sutherland recording, and then there is the recent (2019) Bru Zane release of the original 1859 version, which is indispensable. There are many other releases, some execrable, to each his own.

The music is outstandingly wonderful, and the singers are extremely good - but the production is just awful. There is a veneer of a traditional production in terms of costume and sets - at least there were no high-viz vests around! - but the obsession with ruining opera productions by giving them a weird, wonky edge of grotesquerie, in the name of bringing it up to date, is just revolting.And David McVicar is one of the worst at this - there is something so smug and arrogant, and pretentious about this type of operatic vandelism, which completely spoils the experience for some of us. Why can't people like MacVicar just leave things alone, and let be. This opera should be tragic and sinister - but not grotesque.I bought the dvd, because the music is so wonderful, and I wanted to watch it, but I shall be sending this dvd to the charity shop. I won't ever watch it again. There are some videos of older productions on YouTube which are better, but you can't always get them on dvd. I shall be content just to listen to the cd from now on.