Faust, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Dec. 10 2011

Once in a while there comes along an opera in an “updated” production that does not offend, but works. This Faust was one of those. Perhaps playing off of John Adams’s Dr. Atomic, producer Des McAnuff set the opera in the laboratory of Dr. Faust, a physicist with the Manhattan Project. The constant in every scene was a pair of industrial-grade steel balconies and railings and spiral staircase, one to the left and one to the right. In the center of the back wall was a huge opening, as tall as the Met stage permits, in back of which various images were projected. A small number of props were placed in the center of the stage for each scene.

In Act 1, the props included (large) models of Little Boy and Fat Man suspended in the air, and one of the projected images was of the Atomic Bomb Dome. There were a number of industrial-grade tables in Dr. Faust’s laboratory, covered by sheer white cloths; when Mephistopheles arrived, the cloths were whisked/blown away. At one point we saw Marguerite as a lab assistant working with a complex piece of laboratory equipment that looked something like a lathe.

For Act 2 the laboratory tables with equipment were removed and the crowd brought in other tables for the tavern scene. Respecting the libretto, Valentin did brandish his sword at Mephistopheles. Instead of making a cross of the pieces of the broken sword, a staging device that I have previously seen used to great effect, Valentin threatened Mephistopheles with the medallion that Marguerite had given him, and a few members of the chorus constructed a large “cross” by hoisting one table on its short side, with another table above it, and a third table positioned horizontally in front of the second to form the crossbar.

In Act 3 there were just a couple of low benches; Siebel put his bouquet on one of them and Faust placed the jewel box beneath the other one. There was also a foot-powered Singer sewing machine at which Marguerite worked.

Act 4 was most notable for presenting a Marguerite about 9 months pregnant; at the end of the church scene, she disappeared briefly in the middle of the chorus and then emerged no longer pregnant but holding a small bundle, which she promptly stuffed into the laboratory’s wash basin (the same wash basin from which Siebel had gotten his holy water in Act 3).

Act 5 opened with a scene that, in my experience, is even more rarely presented than the Wolf’s Crag scene in Lucia di Lammermoor—the Walpurgis Night scene. A number of ghouls with ghastly makeup were seated on both sides of a long table which held a Little Boy with its top hatch removed and its “entrails” spilling out onto the table. In the final scene, Marguerite was locked in a 10x10 steel jail cell, which Faust opened with the key that Mephistopheles has provided. When the chorus sang “She is saved!” she ascended to heaven by walking up four flights of industrial-grade steel stairs at the back of the stage, while Mephistopheles and Faust sank down through a trap door. At the very end, Faust reappeared, dressed again as the old man that he was at the beginning, and drank the beaker of poison that he had poured near the beginning of Act 1, then collapsed on the floor—as though the events of the opera had been a dream.

Our cast:
Faust: Jonas Kaufmann
Méphistophélès: René Pape
Marguerite: Marina Poplavskaya
Valentin: Russell Braun
Siébel: Michèle Losier
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production: Des McAnuff

René Pape, with his luscious bass voice, made a commanding Mephistopheles, and seemed to get the most applause at curtain call time. Jonas Kaufmann was a superb Faust; he included a diminuendo at the end of Act 2 that I missed but my neighbors marveled at. Marina Poplavskaya’s Marguerite seemed a bit tentative. Russell Braun’s (Valentin) death scene was masterful, but the music gave no break for applause. The orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin performed magnificently. The encore performance is Wednesday, Jan. 11; attend if you can. It’s not an alpha, but at least a very solid beta.

Rodelinda, Metropolitan Opera HD Live, Dec. 3 2011

Rodelinda is the oldest opera yet presented in the Met HD series. Iphegenie in Tauride dates back to 1779, but Rodelinda, regina de’ Longobardi (to give it its full name) was premiered in 1725. Some of us noted resemblances between Rodelinda and The Messiah; the latter was composed in 1741 and first performed in 1742. Self-borrowings were not uncommon at that time.

The first act opened in a large, spare bedroom, with Rodelinda chained by one arm to her very simple bed. She was soon released by Grimoaldo, usurper of her husband’s throne. Thereafter the scenes shifted between a courtyard and a library. The most prominent feature of the courtyard was a large obelisk; to the right there was a small stable for four to six horses. The library was magnificent: two stories, with balcony, and with hundreds of large books behind glass doors. Even with Met HD close-up camera work, it was not apparent that the books had titles. My guess is that each book was actually a papier-mâché block painted with a large stripe for the title area and thinner stripes for the binding cords. Nevertheless it was very effective. For one scene the courtyard was raised out of sight so that we could see the prison in which Bertarido (the deposed king) was being incarcerated.

Our cast:
Rodelinda: Renée Fleming
Eduige: Stephanie Blythe
Bertarido: Andreas Scholl (countertenor)
Unulfo: Iestyn Davies (countertenor)
Grimoaldo: Joseph Kaiser
Garibaldo: Shenyang
Conductor: Harry Bicket
Production: Stephen Wadsworth

Renée Fleming sang well; I certainly liked her performance here better than her Lucrezia Borgia, recently seen at San Francisco Opera. But I preferred Stephanie Blythe’s singing, if not her acting—certain advantages accrue to a person of Fleming’s size rather than Blythe’s. Of the two countertenors, I much preferred the Unulfo of Iestyn Davies. (Interesting sidelight: in the intermission interview, both countertenors demonstrated their normal speaking voices; Andreas Scholl could pitch his speaking voice rather low. Neither had missed puberty.) Shenyang contributed a mellifluous bass voice in his relatively minor role.

The authenticity and detail of Stephen Wadsworth’s sets were entirely in keeping with the “authenticity” and detail of his sets for Der Ring des Nibelungen in Seattle, currently my gold standard for Ring productions. (Start making plans for the 2013 Seattle Ring!) The music was pleasant, though not particularly memorable or cathartic. A beta.