[Met Performance] CID:302840



Faust
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, December 17, 1990

Debut : Max Charruyer




Faust (687)
Charles Gounod | Jules Barbier/Michel Carré
Faust
Neil Rosenshein

Marguerite
Diana Soviero

Méphistophélès
James Morris

Valentin
Gino Quilico

Siebel
Susan Quittmeyer

Marthe
Joyce Castle

Wagner
James Courtney


Conductor
Thomas Fulton


Director
Hal Prince

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler

Choreographer
Gillian Lynne

Stage Director
Max Charruyer [Debut]





Faust received ten performances this season.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of the Edith C. Blum Foundation

Review 1:

Peter Goodman in Newsday
“Faust” Larger Than Life

There’s an unusual cartoon-like character to the Metropolitan Opera production of Gounod's "Faust," which returned to the house last Monday night. It begins with the [very first] scene: the aged scholar's dark, cavernous study resembles (for those with children of the right age) Castle Grayskull, home of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.


Rolf Langenfass' sets — rugged slabs of houses on chaotic slopes, ruined gothic arches half-seen in the gloom, distant cathedrals in a watered-down Feininger style — and Gil Wechsler's pale, flat lighting add to the notion of Gounod's opera as a conventional, sentimental rendition of merely one corner of the "Faust" legend.


Which it is: Gounod and his librettists, Jules Barbier and Michel Carre, devoted all their attention to the demonically inspired love affair between Faust and the virginal Marguerite, tossing out nearly all of the other things that supposedly happened when the tired dotard sold his soul for youth and knowledge.


That, and the additions and revisions demanded by the Carvalho family, which commissioned the piece in 1859, made for a basic tale about evil old Mephistopheles, the sin of love, and divine punishment. All the elements for a cartoon are right there; Gounod redeems them with lustrous music justly famous for infectious melody and vocal display.


The current Met production, new last season, was prepared by Harold Prince, who has no qualms about using every theatrical trick available. So there's plenty of stage magic going on: Mephistopheles keeps pulling fire out of cups, globes and thin air appearing and disappearing in flares of light and smoke, and emerging from grotesque statues, while the sets turn and advance up and down the stage.


Fortunately, this enhances rather than detracts from the performance. Monday night most of the singers were appropriately larger than life, led by soprano Diana Soviero's penetrating Marguerite and bass James Morris' melodramatic Mephistopheles.


Soviero, her voice clear and focused much of the time, was a fetching heroine, particularly in the crucial Act II: her "Song of the King of Thule" was rhythmic and naive, her joy in the "Jewel Song" girlishly spontaneous, her surrender to Faust anxious but eager. Eventually, as the woman seduced, abandoned and driven mad, her voice alternately trembled and grew flat and affectless.


Morris' Mephistopheles was more contrived, as he whipped his cloak about, reached menacingly toward the sky, and gloated over his triumphs. Fortunately, Morris has the resonant, virile sound to carry through such a broad portrayal. Gino Quilico, as Valentin, Marguerite's soldier-brother, was also a vocal stalwart, his voice taut and commanding, and his presence confident and mature.


Neil Rosenshein, on the other hand, was a stolid, uncomfortable Faust with a small lyric voice that was often inaudible except for the occasional ringing, topmost bellow. No wonder it took sorcery to make Marguerite fall for him. Susan Quittmeyer made a somewhat stiff Siebel, while Joyce Castle's bawdy Marthe was more than this devil could handle.


Thomas Fulton began the evening in the pit rather mildly, his pace slow and placid, but the dances, "Soldiers' Chorus" and other concerted numbers developed the appropriate sparkle.


"Faust" may be a cartoon, but it's an attractive one.



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