The mind of a romantic genius should never be constrained by practical reality. Just ask Goethe, whose epic retelling of the Faust myth looks somewhat like a play when printed on the page, but is fiendishly difficult to perform in its entirety. As a direct heir to this artistic temperament, Hector Berlioz attempted to set the first part of Goethe’s drama to music, but the result was so freely conceived that it resembles a traditional opera only in passing. Because of its notorious staging difficulties – it requires a large orchestra, a choir of considerable size, a full complement of dancers and several distinct sets – La Damnation de Faust has tended to appear more often in the concert hall than the opera house. None of these difficulties, however, seemed to bother director Christian Spuck and stage designer Emma Ryott, whose inventive…
Comentarios