The Damnation of Faust
Barbican
Rigoletto
ENO
Berlioz called La Damnation de Faust ‘an opera without decor or costumes’, which is what I quite often wish all operas were. But as David Cairns writes in his characteristically illuminating but tendentious programme notes, ‘It is an opera of the mind’s eye performed on an ideal stage of the imagination; we see it more vividly than any visual medium could depict it, except the cinema (which it at times anticipates).’ That last interesting thought apart, I wonder if my visual imagination is defective — I suspect that it is. Anyway, I don’t find, on the whole, that I do have vivid images during Damnation, and certainly not of a Hungarian plain, Auerbach’s cellar, and so forth. The ‘Ride to the Abyss’, on the other hand, is without question one of the most terrifying and visually evocative passages in the whole of music, but is in a different category from the rest of this uneven work. In fact, as almost always, for me, Berlioz is his own worst enemy in that the quite marvellous sections of Damnation are so superb that they place the rest in an unflattering light, showing much even of this piece to be commonplace, inept or merely bizarre.
Occasionally there is a performance which is conducted with such intensity and passion that the unevennesses are less acute. It has been Colin Davis’s achievement, over many decades, to produce many of them. Valery Gergiev is not in that league, though his performance with the LSO at the Barbican had some prodigious things. As often, the first part of the concert, comprising the first two parts, was flat: Gergiev takes time to remember which city he is in and which composer he is conducting, let alone which work. There was plenty of raggedness, thanks to his fluttering fingers, from the experienced London Symphony Chorus. And the music of this half is mainly inferior to the second half. No doubt Thomas Quasthoff’s last-minute cancellation was unsettling too, though his flown-in replacement Willard White was completely relaxed as Mephistopheles, singing with insolent ease of tone as well as of demeanour. The music that came off best in these parts was that which hardly relates to Faust, and it took Michael Schade, in that largely ungrateful role — Faust has wonderful monologues, but that’s about it, and so we look in vain for a character who interacts with others — until after the interval to do more than sing efficiently.
Surely there can be no question that Berlioz’s inspiration quickens with the arrival of Marguerite? I find in his dramatic works that his sympathies are quickened far more by women than by men, the most obvious case being Les Troyens. Faust’s monologues, powerful as they are, pale beside the ‘Ballad of the King of Thule’ and the supreme ‘De l’amour l’ardente flamme’, while the duet for Faust and Marguerite is a perfunctory affair. Fortunately, Marguerite’s music was sung ideally by Joyce DiDonato, a spontaneous-seeming artist who has clearly considered the impact of every note she produces, colouring and weighing them so that the climax of her second aria produced the kind of rare impression where one simply wants to forget all other music and live only in what one is hearing at that moment. Schade improved immensely, and ‘Nature immense’ possessed the required rolling grandeur. And Gergiev animated everything in a way he hadn’t seemed to attempt in the first part. So it wasn’t a great occasion, but thanks to DiDonato it was one I wouldn’t have missed.
Jonathan Miller’s Rigoletto is revived for the 12th time at the Coliseum, and thanks to his saturnine presence, in part, it was as fresh as ever. It was also distinguished by two major performances, one by a seasoned veteran, the other by someone at the beginning of what may be a great career. Michael Fabiano is not only immensely attractive as ‘The Duke’, but probes deeper than that, and manages, without its being clear how, to convey a sense of gangland menace, which gives a further dimension to the action and makes his relationship to Rigoletto, which in this updated setting can seem absurd, unpleasantly plausible. Fabiano also has a ringing ardour in his voice, so here’s hoping. Anthony Michaels-Moore is one of those artists who brings distinction to everything he does, but is less celebrated, in both senses, than he deserves to be. That tends to be a baritone’s destiny, but it is more than usually extreme and unfair in his case. Rigoletto is a complicated character, though his music only illustrates some of that — the sick protectiveness comes out in the action but not in his music. Michaels-Moore conveyed it all, was in fabulous form vocally and compensated in his intensity for the insipidity of the object of his affection, his daughter Gilda, here giving an annoyingly blanched account of herself in the person of Katherine Whyte. But then how many unirritating Gildas has one seen or heard? The conducting was in the reliable hands of Stephen Lord, and the orchestra was on top form. ENO’s season has got off to a reassuring start.
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