The Damnation of Faust

The 2010 season of the still very young Victorian Opera commenced on Friday with a single performance in operatic recital of The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz played to a near capacity audience.

For those who do not follow these matters, the VO was formed after the demise of the much loved Victorian State Opera, a collapse that flung dust and debris widely. That dust is yet to fully settle but, now, (not exactly secure yet reassured by a State Government grant of $1.5 million over some years) , this gala concert was at once a hedged low-risk high risk strategy. Low risk in that operatic recital does not require the costly logistics of a full staging. High risk in that the purely musical form holds the company at very close range before very well educated and demanding musical ears.

The result was a triumph that augers well for sustained excellence in the 2010 season.

The Faust legend has long and deep roots in European culture. Broadly it is the tale of a scholar who forsakes the divine and sells his soul for temporal knowledge. Faust’s most recent and poignant incarnation was as the composer Adrian Leverkuehn in Thomas Mann’s allegory of the decline of Germany, (so biting was this work that it was condemned and burnt under the Nazi regime). In Renaissance England Christopher Marlowe’s reworking wove the legend into popular culture. Berlioz was himself captivated, even obsessed by Goethe’s retelling of the legend that, as Dr Kerry Murphy points out in her program note summary of recent scholarship, probably held a deeply personal meaning. At the time of writing the music, Berlioz had left his wife behind in Paris and travelled to Hungry with his mistress. The autobiographical potential here is overt.

In the Goethe inspired Berlioz version Faust is the tale of a doomed soul. The devil Mephistopheles chips at Faust’s lusts and vanities with spectral incantations of pleasure that ultimately lure him to give up his soul to save his beloved Marguerite, and in doing so be carried down into eternal hell fire. It’s a lively libretto with pre-figurations and religious resonances that we are mostly unaware of in the current secular age. In an early tavern scene Brander (sung with resonant energy by David Hibbard) tells the story of a rat that is tricked to take poison and then dying, stumbles into an oven to be roasted to death. This is an early overture of Faust’s fate.

Commentators on Christopher Marlow’s stage version have often noted that being offered the world by Mephistopheles, Faust made little use of his chances, but more astute critics note this probably reflected limitation in staging in his day. In choosing an Operatic Recital form for the first performance, (which was not a success) Berlioz may have wanted to similarly unbind himself from staging technicalities and let the work resonate in the imagination.

If that was an original artistic goal it was achieved under the musical direction of conductor Richard Gill and Concert master Adam Chababi. Pelham Andrew sang the role of Mephistopheles creating an impish, almost sinister character with his animated yet controlled lyrical tone. Tania Ferris in the role of Marguerite brought the audience to spontaneous applause with the graceful line of her interpretation. In the immensely demanding lead role Julian Gavin, at times appearing ever so slightly hesitant matched against Andrew’s more forceful vocal projection, won the audience over with the sustained skill and finesse of his singing. There was, momentarily a fleeting feeling that the orchestra - while not pinched - was being held back to achieve balance in tone and volume. This is in fact a tribute to Gill who calibrated the music faultlessly to the nature of his soloists’ voices. The quality of the orchestral playing and chorale singing was excellent with particularly noteworthy virtuoso passages from violist Helen Ireland and trumpeter Mark Fitzpatrick.

The soloists and ensemble were loudly applauded and called back repeatedly as the often critical Melbourne audience expressed their deep appreciation of a superb recital. The obvious delight on Gill’s face and on those of the musicians was reciprocated in full measure by the audience left already hungry for the next VO work, The Bears/Angelique to be performed over a 10 day season in March.