Faust at the Lyric

After a good long stretch of nothing worth writing about, we made it up to Chicago on Sunday for the matinee of Gounod's Faust. After an exhausting drive (if you are ever in Chicago on the day of the marathon, do not leave the interstate for any reason) and a delicious lunch, I really should have downed a large quantity of coffee before the show, especially since I had never heard or seen Faust before going in.

The opera itself has a fascinating story: it opened the old Met in 1883 and was the most popular operatic work in the world for decades, serving as the banner performance all across America for the first half of the twentieth century. If a person has seen one anthropomorphism of opera, it is sure to have been a classical Brunnhilda in winged helmet and breastplate. If he has seen a second, it was likely an old-fashioned Mephistopheles in red tights and handlebar mustache.

But like so many works, see, e.g., the complete works of Meyerbeer, it fell on rough times and faded out of fashion. So it was unusual to see Lyric performing not only Faust, but also premiering Bizet's Damnation of Faust in the same season. In some ways, I can see how Faust lost out over time to Verdi and Puccini works; it lacks the same kind of dynamic scale-shattering set pieces that form such memorable parts of Trovatore or Tosca. The music lacks the power to bring home in properly dramatic fashion the story that itself contains enough dramatic energy for several operas. Lyrical, emotional, rich---the music of course is all of these, but not powerful. It needed just a little bit more, a little something extra whose absence I cannot blame on the performers.

I have mixed feelings about the staging too. When houses revive Faust today, the red tights are long gone and Mephistopheles appears as the suave, well-dressed gentleman. Frankly, I find this an appropriate change: even when he openly hawks his diabolical wares, Satan comes in attractive trappings. But his stage presence left something to be desired: the ambiance of Act 4, sc. II, Marguerite's torment in the church, conveyed little of the sense of abject terror afflicting the protagonist on stage. Likewise, Mephistopheles appears silently onstage at the opera's conclusion, after the angelic choir has proclaimed Marguerite's salvation, and confronts Faust with the contract he signed in Act I. The paper then bursts into flames and falls to the ground: a dramatic touch, but an ambiguous one. If I were to sign an unpleasant agreement, I would be happier of nothing else than to find it smoldering in ashes. Furthermore, the devil has not heretofore been accompanied by pyrotechnics; why introduce them now? If props could rig the "contract" so it burned but was not consumed (propane line up the actor's sleeve, etc.), that might be one thing. But in the larger context of the performance, this particular stunt falls flat.

In the end, I think the less than adept portrayal of the power of Hell may go hand in hand with the decline in Faust's fortunes generally. Audience members today simply are not scared of the devil. I certainly cannot expect more from producers, who strike me as on average less intelligent than audience members, and frankly less skilled at their portion of the operatic experience. I had the distinct misfortune of spending the entire performance on Sunday sitting next to some buffoon who found the entire affair actually comical. Judging from the sounds in the house, others suffered a similar fate. This criticism excludes, of course, the few bits of intentional levity (Mephistopheles: "Your husband, ma'am, is dead and sends his greetings!"---dark, but somewhat comical). Faust is a story that only has anything to tell its audience if they believe that Faust's actions have real consequences: i.e. they have to believe in hell. Otherwise, it becomes simply a rather inexplicable story of a bumbling man who goes to great lengths to win a woman and then abandons her for no reason whatsoever. The leaven of contracts, a duel, and infanticide do not save such an otherwise helpless story. You cannot have Faust after reducing Mephistopheles to a baritone Cherubino with superior negotiating skills and a few magic tricks.

So how do we expect contemporary audiences to appreciate, and contemporary directors to stage, Faust? When the I-gave-so-much-money-they-put-a-full-page-biography-of-me-in-the-program fellow is a yoga master, such a request defies accommodation. Perhaps we should simply be thankful for living just outside Chicago, rather than New York.

Il Seraglio at the Lyric

We were fortunate enough to make it up to Chicago on Friday evening for the Lyric Opera's performance of Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail). The production was attractive, although the set had a few odd quirks (a large platform with an exposed substructure formed the main set for Act II---and the chorus came out twice and rotated the entire thing for no particular reason; the only set for Act III was a lone door stood in the middle of the stage).

Chas Rader Shieber did a good job supplementing the humor: a troupe of blindfolded wenches spend most of the opera being led from one part of the pasha's palace to another, to comic effect; Pedrillo conveniently retrieves a lute from the prompter's box, and Osmin and Blonde take full advantage of the opportunities afforded by their feuding. However, at the same time there were oddities. The production appears to portray the story as a reminiscence of the pasha---an aged doppelganger silently stalks the pasha throughout the opera, swooning at Konstanze's beauty. Likewise, three burkha-ed women wander in occasionally, although they appear actually to "be there." Why not just tell the story? I'm looking at you, Achim Freyer.

I saw a nameless commenter on an Amazon.com work the other day who described Die Entfuhrung as one of the three greatest opera (have we gotten to the point where we ought to treat the word as singular? I am unsure) of all time---Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutti rounded out his triumvirate. Frankly, I had never heard of it until seeing it on Lyric's schedule. While beautiful, I don't know that I would lavish that sort of praise on it. I simply am not willing to accept that the art form reached its apex with the singspiel.

Be that as it may, high marks go to Aleksandra Kurzak (Blonde) and Andrea Silvestrelli (Osmin). Erin Wall's Konstanze was gorgeous, but amazingly staid. I am inclined to suspect, given the character, that the somber, near-plodding tone is built into her part and thus that she executed perfectly. But if that is the case I simply don't care for the role quite as much; the pain of forlorn love could stand a bit more expression. Matthew Polenzani (Belmonte) did a fine job as well, sticking out all three uncut acts and four arias with beauty and melody. He was, however, notably quiet. The Civic Opera House possesses superb accoustics (and we had stupendous seats, at least compared to the second-balcony eyries my parents always had at the Memphis Orpheum Theater)---but Polenzani remained quiet even over the small Mozart orchestra. Steve Davislim sang Pedrillo with a cough and did an excellent job. David Steiger's Pasha Selim was not objectionable, simply ordinary. I remain impressed with maestro Sr. Andrew Davis, but without a familiarity of the piece I lack standing to pass on whether he gave a "good" reading.

All in all, a superb outing. We brought along a dear friend and a lovely lady of his acquaintance for their first operatic performance, and were pleased to see them enjoy the outing. I wish immensely that I could make it back to Chicago on the 20th or 27th for Cavalleria and Pagliacci, but I don't see it happening, sadly.