THE IRISH TIMES
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Tuesday 25th April 2006

Faust Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

Michael Dervan


Back in the 1940s, when Opera Ireland was still the Dublin Grand Opera Society, Verdi's Il Trovatore was the only work to get more DGOS productions than Gounod's Faust. Trovatore clocked up nine in nine years and Faust, with eight, shared its second place in the popularity stakes with Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Faust has declined greatly in popularity since then, and the current production, directed by Dieter Kaegi with designs by Stefanie Pasterkamp, is only the fourth since 1976. The new Faust, a co-production with Theater Lübeck, relocates the work to a run-down public waiting room, with peeling plaster on the walls, desultory figures seated on backless benches, and elderly homeless males (Faust himself among them) taking refuge from the world outside.

The title role is split between two tenors, Joe Turpin for the old man, Anthony Kearns for the satanically rejuvenated young figure. The old Faust shadows his younger self, and the object of his affections, Marguerite, also gets a bi-location scene. The chorus emulates what's clearly intended to be Weimar Republic decadence (there's a dominatrix with her subject on a chain, much exposure of flesh, and sexual to-ing and fro-ing), and appears as everyday folk and modern, club-wielding thugs. Marthe is the toilet attendant, and exits loo-ward with Méphistophélès for a bit of hanky-panky. You get the picture.

The greatest interest in this Faust is actually what goes on in the pit. Bruno Ferrandis takes Gounod's music seriously on its own terms, shapes it with sensitive care, makes its colours glow, handles its climaxes and special moments effectively, and yields judiciously but not cloyingly to its sentimentality.

The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is only momentarily (in some off-colour wind solos) recognisable as the band that played so roughly in Cenerentola. The singing of the chorus, however, continues to show the kind of weaknesses of intonation and ensemble that Opera Ireland long ago moved to make a thing of the past. The best singing on stage comes from the Croatian mezzo soprano Renata Pokupic in the trousers role of Siébel. Her tone is straight and true, her boyish antics perfectly apt, and whenever she sings she simply commands attention.

The Marguerite of French soprano Chantal Mathias is delivered with strength and focus, but without quite the agility and flexibility the role demands.

Irish tenor Anthony Kearns is clearly a singer of potential. He gets around the notes of the young Faust quite well, but doesn't yet really manage to convey much in the way of character or feeling, The old Faust of US tenor Joe Turpin falls less pleasantly on the ear, but is richer in nuance.

The production rather robs Irish bass Gerard O'Connor of any plausibility, and O'Connor's always considerable theatrical presence is less successful than usual in masking his uncertainties of pitch.

Irish baritones Martin Higgins (landed with a ridiculous cross-dressing costume as Wagner, as well as sound-impeding mask) and Owen Gilhooly (Valentin) both sing with more force than effectiveness, and mezzo soprano Edel O'Brien does what's asked of her as Marthe with spirit. All in all, then, this is not a production to suggest Opera Ireland has regained the faith it once had in Faust.