The Damnation of Faust has been called an opera of the mind's eye; a sprawling cosmic opus of hallucinogenic intensity that contains vaulting ambition, erotic rapture, cunning diabolism and a recipe for baked rat.
Berlioz did not conceive the work for the opera house, though many attempts have been made to stage it. With this semi-staged concert performance, Opera North avoids the perilous route of full production and attempts to meet the work halfway. Unfortunately, The Damnation of Faust is not really a piece that you can do by half measures - it is an all-or-nothing work that is not enhanced by the caution of this production.
Matthias Janser's directorial contribution is stark in the extreme. The principals are marked out from the black-clad chorus merely by some incongruously janitorial overcoats. It is strange to hear Faust's great hymn to nature delivered by a bloke who looks as if he works in a garden centre.
Stephen O'Mara's Faust has an even, supple tone, but suffers an incapacitating lack of charisma. It does not help that his fellow principals are defiantly off the book, while he spends the evening closely nuzzling his score. In his defence, O'Mara was a relatively recent addition to the cast - but not as recent as his nemesis, the young Finnish bass Petri Lindroos, flown in that morning to replace an indisposed Mephistopheles.
Lindroos's silky, insinuating bass and flashing charm reminds you that The Damnation of Faust is less like any other opera than the vast, violently confused verse dramas of Berlioz's idol, Lord Byron. In the uneven conflict between Lindroos and O'Mara, the dice seem loaded against the dusty scholar as the devil waltzes away with all the best tunes.
Lilli Paasikivi makes a plangent, lyrical Marguerite, and Paul Gibson provides a rumbustious interjection as the beery toper Brander. Conductor Frédéric Chaslin seems more intent on reining Berlioz in than letting him run wild, but the excellent Opera North chorus builds up to a terrific climax as Faust and Marguerite make their separate celestial exits.
· At Theatre Royal, Newcastle, on Thursday. Box office: 0870 905 5060. Then touring.
