OPERA REVIEW : ‘Faust’: The Met Makes a Mess of a Masterpiece

NEW YORK —  Gounod’s “Faust” used to be the aesthetic pride and fiscal joy of the Metropolitan.

It was the very first opera performed by the company, back in 1883. It became so popular over the years that one critical wag dubbed the Met a Faustspielhaus .

In recent decades, the simplistic, irresistibly sentimental, intrinsically Gallic masterpiece fell from favor at Lincoln Center. This season, however, the company mustered a costly, potentially glamorous new production.

It turned out to be a disaster. The local press reviled it. The public resisted a stampede to the box office.

Tuesday night, at the 424th “Faust” in Met history, one could see--and hear--why. No one involved in this travesty seemed to have taken the work seriously.

Harold Prince may be very clever when attending to Broadway-oriented phantoms of the opera. But he apparently becomes clumsy and naive, even obtuse, when confronting the real thing.

Last summer he directed a staggeringly dull “Don Giovanni” next door at the State Theater. Now he has given the Met a dull, heavy-handed and often inept “Faust.”

Forget about elegance, focus and romantic fantasy. Forget about a central concept. Prince deals in illustrative gimmicks worthy of Classic Comics. Most surprising, his gimmicks don’t even enjoy the benefit of good, old-fashioned, show-biz pizazz.

The seductive vision of Marguerite, hailed by the aged Faust as a marvel, is nothing more than the shadow of a hootchy-kootch dancer reflected on a big bedsheet. Ah, raunch.

Mephistopheles doesn’t bother to conjure up the magical wine that is supposed to astound the townsfolk. They, and we, must just imagine it. In the church scene, however, the Devil does manage to transform himself into a gargoyle. Ah, Gothic horror.

Marguerite’s spinning wheel shows up in the wrong aria. When we see it, we don’t hear it in the pit, and vice versa.

At the end, when spiritual catharsis looms, the heavenly choir still proclaims the heroine’s salvation. However, Marguerite climbs steep steps to a platform inhabited by a beefy executioner who wields a huge ax. (Actually, a slender double for the matronly soprano does the climbing, but visual credibility no longer matters here.) Not incidentally, this Grand Guignol finale proved both anti-musical and theatrically invalid 25 years ago when Frank Corsaro invented it for the City Opera.

Prince spends most of the evening frantically moving his players on and off a berserk turntable that houses a bleak, vaguely surrealistic village designed by Rolf Langenfass. Marguerite’s little home, described by the ardent Faust as “chaste and pure,” resembles nothing so much as a mud hut. The heroine enters it from the roof.

When the atmosphere becomes erotic, Prince and Langenfass suddenly erect some all too obvious symbols. To the tender strains of the love duet, two phallic trees sprout from the ground in front of the hut.

Like Jorge Lavelli at the Paris Opera, Prince contradicts the formula pomp of the Soldier’s Chorus by assigning it to a platoon of grotesquely wounded veterans. They are accompanied by camp followers who engage the local girls in a hair-pulling contest. Ah, sordid realism.

Eventually, Prince recasts the Devil as choreographer for a corps of zombies en route either to hell or to prison. We’re not sure which.

And so it goes. Irrelevantly. Hideously. Ponderously.

All still might not have been lost if the musical standards had been high. No such luck.

Charles Dutoit, who abandoned the Walpurgisnacht cliches but opened a number of traditional cuts, conducted with speedy efficiency. If his urgency was predicated on a desire to get through the ordeal as quickly as possible, one could not blame him.

Neil Shicoff, who commands the appropriate vocal equipment, bullied and belted his way through the title role. Forget about finesse. Forget about poetry. Forget about the high C in a transposed “Salut! demeure.”

Barbara Daniels, the rather dowdy Marguerite, offered little more than some gleaming high notes. Forget about an even line. Forget about an audible trill in the Jewel Song.

Michael Devlin--tall, gaunt, restrained and almost debonair--looked fine as Mephistopheles. Unfortunately, the vocal challenge eluded his present resources. Forget about the sound of a big, craggy, juicy basso in this crucial role.

The supporting players provided minimal relief. Hilda Harris introduced a modest Siebel, Gino Quilico a rough-toned Valentin, Gweneth Bean a Wagnerian Marthe Schwertlein.

By the time the curtain mercifully fell, at 11:45, the audience had decreased considerably. Standing room, home of the true aficionado, was ominously vacant.

It was a sad night at, and for, the old Faustspielhaus.