Thursday, June 17, 2010

There is No Good Reason to Ever Perform Faust Again.

Six good arias strewn among two and a half hours of boring filler do not an opera make. Especially when performed by an Anglophone cast plus one Italian and one Argentinian, when none of them project the text the way a French cast of, say, 1900, would have. Especially when the Marguerite is miscast. Especially with terrible stage direction. Especially when the Siebel and Valentin are the most interesting to watch or listen to.

This thing should be performed as a half-hour of excerpts if it's performed at all. I will see it next when Nellie Melba comes back from the grave to sing Marguerite.

2 comments:

John Marcher said...

Though I completely agree, I am somewhat stunned you have nothing more to add since Racette is in it.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Hehehe. I can post more details in a separate posting. It's much harder for me to write a short, punchy posting about a performance than to blather at great length.