Last Tuesday night in New York I was the guest at a lovely little dinner party at the home of Denes Striny. He’s a tenor and voice teacher and later that evening his most famous student, soprano Lauren Flanigan, would be starring in a revival of Hugo Weisgall’s “Esther” at the New York City Opera. We’ve become friends because we are both former students of Michael Cordovana, a retired assistant conductor from the Dallas Opera and faculty member of Catholic University in Washington, DC. Now getting on in years, Mike lives in Denes’ building and joined us for dinner.
Gossip of the music world and the state of opera was the main topic over dinner. At one point, Mike hit a familiar refrain, saying something like, “What’s happened to opera, anyway? Such strange things going on in the staging and the requirement that men remove their shirts. When did it become a visual art and stop being an aural one?”
I was too respectful of my former professor to engage, but I chuckled inside since after dinner I would be headed to the Metropolitan Opera for a performance of Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust.” And I hadn’t a clue who was going to be singing. I was going in order to see the incredible staging by Robert Lepage, which blew me away last season when I caught it at the movies.
“Faust” was even better in person. I missed some of the close-ups — like the evil grin of Mephistopheles and, yes, the hunky male acrobats without shirts — but the grand scope and over-arching ideas of the staging became more clear and rewarding from a seat in the mid-orchestra, instead of at my local multiplex.
For the record, though, the musical performances were good to great. Tenor Ramon Vargas conveyed well Faust’s progression — first an old man, then a young man again, eager and seeking, in love and ardor, and finally caught in hopeless desperation. I would have liked a bit more sinister bite and general physicality from baritone Ildar Abdrazakov as Mephistopheles. As for soprano Olga Borodina as Marguerite, well, she just didn’t compare with the sumptuous Susan Graham from last year. Throughout the night, James Conlon had that terrific orchestra and amazing chorus well in hand and kept everything moving with gusto.
Now, on to Lepage’s work.
In “Faust,” he creates a visual language that brings out the libretto’s emphasis on above and below, heaven and hell, and the purgatory of the earthly plane. (Do you see love’s star in the vault of heaven?)
The stage is a giant grid that can become separate compartments or one giant screen for projections of live and interactive video. Think of the set for the Hollywood Squares and add little window shades on the front and back of each square.
Near the beginning, flocks of dark birds circle and swarm. Perhaps they’re an omen but they also function to, in effect, wipe the whole slate clean. There won’t be many circles or spirals thereafter. Everything is rigid right angles.
Soon we’re in a church and stained glass windows are projected from bottom to top. Then we get our first glimpse of those acrobats. First one comes out, wearing a loincloth, and climbs onto the intersection of steel posts and takes the pose of Christ on the cross — the cross, the axis mundi of spiritual salvation. But soon, four more Christs come out and, eh gad, we have five crucifixes.
For all the Christian associations of “Faust,” there’s a nice pagan emphasis on the elements of life — earth, air, fire, water — in both the libretto and this cinematic staging. (Spirits of earth and air stir your dreams.)
A greenish water that fills the screens as Mephistopheles takes Faust away in a rowboat. Figures dive into the water and, through the magic of technology, we see them become amorphous blobs floating in the liquidy projections, like sprites, perhaps, or fetus, ready for reincarnation.
Near the beginning of Part III, the set is a huge blue and white country manor and the shadow of a tree can easily be seen against it. And the tree sways in the wind. When have we ever seen (not heard) wind (air) in the theatre? Of course, we’ve all felt it when a hall is drafty and chilly as it was at the Met that night (though presumably that wasn’t part of Lepage’s doing).
Twice the male acrobats seem to turn the axis on its side and move across the surface of the set as if it were a floor. In Part II they are soldiers marching up and down the stage, and the live video makes the green grass of the earth move buoyantly under their feet.
Then, after intermission, when the female dancers are gallivanting around in the manor house, the men return as some kind of red serpents or gargoyles. Suspended from above, they seduce and violate the women, like in a mid-air 69-position. It’s not particularly violent, but it is certainly a forced, physical coupling of above and below.
When Faust and Marguerite finally are alone for a love duet, Lepage places them some distance apart singing straight out to the audience. Yet at the same time, he brings out pairs of dancers within each cubicle of the set and they unite in a gentle love-making dance. Behind each of them, a golden flower blooms. (What pleasure calls you into this peacock’s room?) It seems to say that in the union of sex, all barriers and grids are blown away by a radiant unfolding circle of beauty.
During Marguerite’s aria in Part III, fires flicker at all levels of the stage, and her face is broadcast huge onto the screen, itself partially in flames. (Love’s searing flame now consumes each day.) We know she’s in love but it’s hard to tell if it’s her assumption or her immolation.
In the penultimate scene, when Faust and Mephistopheles are racing to the gates of hell on horseback, the male acrobats are suspended in profile in front of images of galloping horses. Finally on the right side of the stage, Faust drops off his horse and falls down, down, down. And the male chorus (shirts off) is seen in red light at the bottom of the stage. Devils welcome their newest prize.
Finally, there is there is Marguerite’s journey up to the blue clouds of heaven. No great technological magic here, only another ladder, which has been a reoccurring image throughout the night. And rather than resorting to a dancer taking her place, the star soprano herself (with a tether on her back) climbs some 40 or 50 feet into the fly space above the Met’s enormous stage. Angels sing to welcome her.
