Deadly Bargains

The Royal Opera House continued its winning streak this Autumn with a superb revival of Faust. In David McVicar’s kitsch production, the action of the drama is relocated to Gounod’s Paris and the opera’s tension between earthly libido and religious sentimentality is figured in the composer’s own psyche. This setting allows McVicar to indulge in his usual stylistic trademarks - a parade of cabaret girls, cross-dressing and sexual transgression, above all in the Walpurgisnacht - as well as an array of gaudy sets. A couple of these touches (such as Faust injecting heroin) felt needlessly gratuitous, but rather this than the stultifying blandness of his recent Anna Bolena. For this revival, Covent Garden assembled a cast in a million, which was also being broadcast live via cinema transmission. As Faust, Vittorio Grigolo was the image of…