Charles Gounod - Faust
Irish National Opera, 2023
Elaine Kelly, Jack Furness, Duke Kim, Nick Dunning, Nicholas Brownlee, Jennifer Davis, Gyula Nagy, Mark Nathan, Gemma Ní Bhriain, Colette McGahon
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin - 1st October 2023
Goethe's Faust brings up some essential and always relevant big questions about the nature of humanity and the meaning of life. The quest for knowledge, love versus lust, science versus religion, war and peace, forgiveness versus revenge, all are considered, as well as the consequences to our actions. Gounod's Faust takes up all these into his opera but seems to have little serious consideration or point to make about any of them and instead focusses almost exclusively on the tragic love story at the centre, and using the rest of the material as colour for some admittedly fantastic dramatic set pieces and thrilling music. That can be enough but it doesn't have to be, and an adventurous production can bring all these elements together into something more coherent and thoughtful. Jack Furness's production for the Irish National Opera at best pays lip-service to some of the bigger questions, but it is ultimately more successful in serving those set pieces with strong musical and singing performances.
The INO Faust at least has a very distinctive look and feel and Furness succeeds in putting the drama across very much in its own way, with little of the obvious traditional period settings. It seems to be set against the beginning of the Great War in the costumes and period detail, but not strictly so, which is enough to give this plenty of mood and menace for the work of the devil to be unleashed. Right from the start it makes its mark, finding a unique way of presenting the tricky transformation scene of Faust from an old man - who nonetheless has a soaring tenor voice - into a younger man followed his renouncement of his studies and his soul along with it, and gives it all up to Mephistopheles in exchange for reliving a life filled with true possibilities. The tenor, Duke Kim, appears as a younger shadow version of an actor playing the aged scientist (Nick Dunning), who is eventually freed from the shackles of his old age.
This works well enough without any real distraction, the older Faust reappearing only now and again as if to remind him of the fate that still awaits him. There is a similar adventurous approach to several of the other key scenes, the simple adaptable set designs moving into place to set mood and background more than serving strictly as literal locations. This allows things to similarly move fluidly with all the quality of a nightmarish flow of time and place, all under the control of Mephistopheles. Mainly there are three large chimneys that look like setting the scene of a dark industry of people working in factories. These turn into ovens that are used in the manufacture of armaments for the war that Valentin is off to fight in with his comrades, the largest one eventually revolving downward to present a huge cannon.
The nature of war is a constant theme throughout, the evidence of Mephistopheles at large in the world or perhaps the misadventures of men of science having consequences far beyond the actions of one man, Faust. The contrasts and ambiguities of war are also reflected in the imagery, with a huge cross made of a rocket bomb and crossed rifles in the church scene where Marguerite is condemned, and there are retina-searing explosive incidents elsewhere. You can't deny that the production makes the necessary impact on such scenes, not least in the arrival of Mephistopheles rising up in a blinding red light from beneath the stage, but right through the Act II drinking song and waltz, the Jewel Song, the soldier's chorus, and the hallucinatory Walpurgis night scene. The production looks great and is particularly well-choreographed in those crowd and choral scenes.
But somehow, as a whole, it never seems to amount to a great deal, and ultimately Gounod's focus on Faust's chase, treatment and abandonment of Marguerite which makes up the bulk of the dramatic thread that ties up the work, overshadows any attempt to draw deeper meaning or resonance out of the subject. It doesn't have to be like that and many productions have striven to overcome the dramatic limitations of the opera (Frank Castorf, Vienna 2021 - being one of the most recent and extreme), but Jack Furness doesn't really push those ideas anywhere interesting. The focus appears to be just to ensure that full justice is done to Gounod's music and there at least there is much to enjoy in the performance at the opening performance at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.
The orchestra was very capably handled by Elaine Kelly, capturing the melodic invention of Gounod's score and its dramatic setting. It was the singing however that really stood out here. Arguably, this is an opera made for showing off great singers and the performances here were simply outstanding. South Korean tenor Duke Kim's Faust soared, delivering one of the best performances I've seen in the role, playing off a fine Mephistopheles from Nicholas Brownlee and Jennifer Davis's sympathetic Marguerite. Gyula Nagy was an impressive Valentin, delivering a terrific "Ecoute-moi bien Marguerite" dire warning to his sister. There were no weaknesses anywhere here, with Mark Nathan as Wagner, Gemma Ní Bhriain as Siébel and Colette McGahon rounding out a great cast. You couldn't fail to entertain an audience with that, which - more than trying to draw anything deeper out of Faust - was clearly the intention and successfully achieved.
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External Links: Irish National Opera
