Even Berlioz wasn't sure how to classify his feverish choral ramble through the Faust myth. First he called it a "concert opera", then he settled on "dramatic legend". He never intended it to be actually staged, although that hasn't stopped several opera companies from having a go. Still, the piece is best heard in concert, with the vanishing spirits, advancing armies and galloping horses referred to in the libretto's scenic descriptions left to the mind's eye.
The Damnation of Faust is not an easy work to bring off, and this performance by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg under Jan Latham-Koenig did require a bit of imagination on the part of the audience. Berlioz writes for a huge orchestra, with a wealth of wind instruments- bubbling E-flat clarinet, plangent cor anglais - and an array of percussion, including a real church bell. Yet at the Barbican, the music didn't come across as colourfully as it might have. The score is admittedly somewhat unrelenting, but the orchestra rarely drew back enough to throw its contrasts into sufficiently sharp relief, to let any magic come through. There was plenty of crisp, arresting playing, but much that was workmanlike as well.
The soloists, too, were for the most part only nearly convincing. Béatrice Uria Monzon's rich, full-bodied mezzo initially promised much for the role of Marguerite, but she maintained a sense of emotional detachment; the fact that her arms were glued across her front to keep her wrap from slipping did not help. Philippe Rouillon's Mephistopheles was far more involved, but needed a little more demonic charm. And Jean-Pascal Introvigne's Brander was too respectable, lacking the filthy low notes for his drinking song. In fact it was the only non-French soloist, Keith Lewis, who was most successful, singing Faust with an easy, ringing tenor that made his aria at the start of part three a highlight of the performance.
The Pandemonium scene - describing Faust's arrival in hell - was the other high point, with the orchestra at its loudest and proudest and the men of the choir singing in made-up demons' language (women don't feature in Berlioz's infernal vision). The whole work was a big sing for the Philharmonia Chorus, who rose to the challenge. They were joined for the final scene, In Heaven, by the schoolboys of the Tiffin Choir, who made a stripy-blazered incursion onto the stage. But when what had gone before had been only intermittently involving, the scene did not seem much of a redemption.
