Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust (London Proms, August 8, 2017)
by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2019 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
Last night I ran Charles and I a quite interesting video of Hector Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust, composed in 1845 and an opera in all but name — Berlioz variously called it a “dramatic symphony” and a “dramatic legend,” but unlike his previous “dramatic symphony” on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (one of the most underrated pieces of classical music ever written, and one of the most hauntingly beautiful), it features four vocal soloists (as Faust, his girlfriend Marguerite, Mephistopheles — the incarnation of the Devil to whom Faust sells his soul — and Faust’s student and friend Brander), three choruses (men, women and boys) and a full symphony orchestra in a dramatized version of the Faust legend. Though Arrigo Boïto’s opera Mefistofele remains my favorite musical version of the Faust story, Berlioz’ whatchamacallit is also quite powerful and beautiful, though interestingly it works best in the quieter, more lyrical parts of the story than in the more openly “dramatic” ones like the final ride to hell on which Mephistopheles takes Faust in the last movement. The performance Charles and I were watching came from the BBC Proms concert on August 8, 2017 and was as “bootleg” as it gets: though the soundtrack featured broadcast announcements at the beginning, middle and end (Berlioz wrote Damnation in four “parts” but the Proms concert was given in just two, with the intermission between parts two and three) the video was obviously shot from inside the theatre by an amateur with a camcorder or a smartphone, with frequent jiggles in the image, a few shots that cut off the top of tenor Michael Spyres’ head, occasional black screens when another audience member got in their way, and an odd change of perspective that indicates the person who filmed this must have switched seats during the intermission.
The first half was filmed from a straight-on perspective in which the singers were facing the camera; the second half was filmed from the side, with conductor John Eliot Gardiner seemingly between the principals, Michael Spyres as Faust and Ann Hallenberg as Marguerite — and during their intimate romantic duet I was beginning to wonder when they were going to tell that old guy waving a stick between them to get lost so they could be alone. Though I’d have liked to see a staged version — or at least an “official” concert video with subtitles so we could tell what was going on — this Damnation was damned good (pardon the pun). I’d had an allergy towards John Eliot Gardiner ever since I heard his version of Handel’s The Messiah in the early 1980’s after having heard it hailed as the best-ever recording; to me it seemed an example of “historically informed performance” at its worst, sounding more like an ill-attended cocktail party than anything else, with an orchestra and chorus simply too small to do justice to Handel’s writing. At that point my reference for Messiah was the third and last of Sir Thomas Beecham’s three Messiah recordings, with filled-out orchestrations and giant choruses, though later I heard a smaller-scaled “historically informed” performance led by Roy Goodman and found it to have all the emotional weight and power I’d been hearing in Beecham’s and missing in Gardiner’s.
Well, as things turned out Gardiner realty got into the swing of things with Berlioz’ Damnation — he understood that this is a Romantic work and threw himself into the job of conducting it with all the intensity and passion he could muster. Damnation was a breathtaking performance remarkable not only for Gardiner’s high-intensity reading but also the superlative singing of Michael Spyres. French tenor roles from the early 19th century are difficult to cast because the characters tend to be “heroic” in stature but the composers also expected a very high-lying voice with a lyrical sound even in notes above high “C,” which modern composers usually treat as the upper limit of the tenor voice. Spyres sounded a bit strangled on a couple of those stratospheric high notes but otherwise had the right voice for the role (at times he reminded me of Jussi Björling and made me wonder if Björling ever sang Damnation), and he was considerably better than the other singers. Laurent Naouri was good but awfully businesslike as Mephistopheles, and Ann Hallenberg as Marguerite, vocally acceptable but not great, was given an unattractive outfit and hairdo that hardly made her look like a woman a man would sell his soul for. Ashley Richer as Brander looked and sounded enough like Laurent Naouri I could imagine non-cognoscenti in the audience wondering why there appeared to be two devils in competition for Faust’s soul. Overall, though, I quite liked this Damnation and was glad for the chance to see it.
Last night I ran Charles and I a quite interesting video of Hector Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust, composed in 1845 and an opera in all but name — Berlioz variously called it a “dramatic symphony” and a “dramatic legend,” but unlike his previous “dramatic symphony” on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (one of the most underrated pieces of classical music ever written, and one of the most hauntingly beautiful), it features four vocal soloists (as Faust, his girlfriend Marguerite, Mephistopheles — the incarnation of the Devil to whom Faust sells his soul — and Faust’s student and friend Brander), three choruses (men, women and boys) and a full symphony orchestra in a dramatized version of the Faust legend. Though Arrigo Boïto’s opera Mefistofele remains my favorite musical version of the Faust story, Berlioz’ whatchamacallit is also quite powerful and beautiful, though interestingly it works best in the quieter, more lyrical parts of the story than in the more openly “dramatic” ones like the final ride to hell on which Mephistopheles takes Faust in the last movement. The performance Charles and I were watching came from the BBC Proms concert on August 8, 2017 and was as “bootleg” as it gets: though the soundtrack featured broadcast announcements at the beginning, middle and end (Berlioz wrote Damnation in four “parts” but the Proms concert was given in just two, with the intermission between parts two and three) the video was obviously shot from inside the theatre by an amateur with a camcorder or a smartphone, with frequent jiggles in the image, a few shots that cut off the top of tenor Michael Spyres’ head, occasional black screens when another audience member got in their way, and an odd change of perspective that indicates the person who filmed this must have switched seats during the intermission.
The first half was filmed from a straight-on perspective in which the singers were facing the camera; the second half was filmed from the side, with conductor John Eliot Gardiner seemingly between the principals, Michael Spyres as Faust and Ann Hallenberg as Marguerite — and during their intimate romantic duet I was beginning to wonder when they were going to tell that old guy waving a stick between them to get lost so they could be alone. Though I’d have liked to see a staged version — or at least an “official” concert video with subtitles so we could tell what was going on — this Damnation was damned good (pardon the pun). I’d had an allergy towards John Eliot Gardiner ever since I heard his version of Handel’s The Messiah in the early 1980’s after having heard it hailed as the best-ever recording; to me it seemed an example of “historically informed performance” at its worst, sounding more like an ill-attended cocktail party than anything else, with an orchestra and chorus simply too small to do justice to Handel’s writing. At that point my reference for Messiah was the third and last of Sir Thomas Beecham’s three Messiah recordings, with filled-out orchestrations and giant choruses, though later I heard a smaller-scaled “historically informed” performance led by Roy Goodman and found it to have all the emotional weight and power I’d been hearing in Beecham’s and missing in Gardiner’s.
Well, as things turned out Gardiner realty got into the swing of things with Berlioz’ Damnation — he understood that this is a Romantic work and threw himself into the job of conducting it with all the intensity and passion he could muster. Damnation was a breathtaking performance remarkable not only for Gardiner’s high-intensity reading but also the superlative singing of Michael Spyres. French tenor roles from the early 19th century are difficult to cast because the characters tend to be “heroic” in stature but the composers also expected a very high-lying voice with a lyrical sound even in notes above high “C,” which modern composers usually treat as the upper limit of the tenor voice. Spyres sounded a bit strangled on a couple of those stratospheric high notes but otherwise had the right voice for the role (at times he reminded me of Jussi Björling and made me wonder if Björling ever sang Damnation), and he was considerably better than the other singers. Laurent Naouri was good but awfully businesslike as Mephistopheles, and Ann Hallenberg as Marguerite, vocally acceptable but not great, was given an unattractive outfit and hairdo that hardly made her look like a woman a man would sell his soul for. Ashley Richer as Brander looked and sounded enough like Laurent Naouri I could imagine non-cognoscenti in the audience wondering why there appeared to be two devils in competition for Faust’s soul. Overall, though, I quite liked this Damnation and was glad for the chance to see it.
Comments
Post a Comment