Le veau d'or est toujours debout: Faust at the Met

For Faust's much-touted return to the Met stage, the Met orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin gave Gounod's score of their best, and brought out the best in it. There was fine singing, as well, with René Pape a standout as a magnificent Méphistophélès. Des McAnuff's production, however, lacked coherence, and lacked likewise a clear central idea to give either intellectual or emotional urgency to the drama. As a gentleman in front of me in line for champagne at the interval observed, it's hard to get romance going in a chemistry lab. If McAnuff had picked a chemistry lab of the early twentieth century and stuck to it--the Devil with an offer for unscrupulous career advancement, Marguerite as a bachelor girl secretary, perhaps--this might have been more effective. Going a less literal route could work as well. But the religious and romantic sentimentality of the central acts was left untouched, and, as far as I could tell, played without irony and without commentary, which made very little sense in this context. Also, I can't help but take issue with a production that chooses to evoke two of the twentieth century's greatest collective traumas--the First World War and the detonation of the atom bomb--and then not integrate them in the drama in a way that makes it clear how they affect the characters.

Frisch, Jungen, greifet an!

Mal ganz ehrlich: I really like Wagner. I wouldn't call myself a Wagnerite, because Wagnerites both know a great deal more than I do, and often exhibit partisanship which alarms (even) me (as Rene Pape has said, they are special people who tend to freak out a lot) but I really do love the dense, glorious music, and the sheer ambition of his Gesamtkunstwerke. Not only do I love the music, but my inner child is breathlessly delighted by the fact that the dense, glorious music is so often employed to evoke settings like this:

Steiles Felsenufer. Das Meer nimmt den größten Teil der Bühne ein; weite Aussicht auf dasselbe. Die Felsen im Vordergrund bilden auf beiden Seiten Schluchten, aus denen die Echos antworten. – Finsteres Wetter; heftiger Sturm; zwischen den Felsen selbst verliert der Wind, den man in offener See die Wogen peitschen sieht, seine Macht; nur von Zeit zu Zeit scheint das Heulen des Sturms hereinzudringen. – Das Schiff Dalands hat soeben dicht am Ufer Anker geworfen; die Mannschaft ist in geräuschvoller Arbeit beschäftigt, die Segel aufzustreichen, Taue auszuwerfen u.s.w. Daland ist ans Land gegangen; er steigt auf einen Felsen und sucht landeinwärts die Gegend zu erkennen.

For gorgeous early-twentieth postcards of Holländer go here. In August Everding's production, set (I believe) in the early twentieth century, the steiles Felsenufer of Act I towers over Daland's travel-weary ship and crew, but the ocean is unfortunately nowhere to be seen (as in the Met's photo, above.) The Holländer's ship, large as a man o' war, appears out of nowhere, sinks its anchor on a blood-red chain, and sinks its landing stairs onto Daland's deck. Impressive (if lacking in obviously infernal accoutrements.) Act II has a bare room full of treadle sewing machines and cloth-covered tables, with Mary shrilly and sententiously supervising productivity. I always pictured the Spinning Chorus much cozier, but ah well. Act III had a celebration on the steps leading down to the pier, with Daland's house mysteriously under the said steps. (Parenthetically, what Norwegian celebration involves dancing, large jack-o-lantern masks and copious quantities of wine? Christmas?) So far, so good (if unremarkable.) But the blocking (or lack thereof) was, I thought, deeply problematic. Wouldn't Daland be somewhat suspicious of a prospective son-in-law who never looks him in the eye? Wouldn't Senta's fixation on the portrait be more effective if there were more general movement and interaction? Surely it is hardly revolutionary to suggest that the drama of Senta and the Holländer standing wie gebannt on opposite sides of the room and staring fixedly at each other would be much more effective if this were not what everyone is doing with everyone else all the time.