It's not strictly an opera but rather a symphonic poem as I learned today. La Damnation de Faust is based on Goethe's legendary Faust, composed by Berlioz and staged as a "dramatic legend" by the Met.
We witnessed a new direction the opera has taken as the Met under Peter Gelb's management mixed traditional stage set with cutting edge software technology. It was hailed as the marriage between theatre and state-of-the-art video technology. Holger Forterer a German interactive video designer takes the credit for using this technology for set design. This was done skillfully without the video imagery overwhelming the music or drama. The images were not pre-recorded, rather the performers, acrobats, dancers and singers contribute to the projection through their movements or the pitch of their voices.
The producer Robert Lepage is known for his Cirque du Soleil production of Ka among others. To the unschooled like myself in this type of production, the set appeared to be a cold metal scaffolding of sorts with boxed compartments resembling the old Hollywood Squares television board which is a stack of open-faced cubicles.
But it is more than that. There were elaborate changes taking place, video projections on the stage, acrobatic and classical dance and of course the Met boasting its talented mezzo-soprano Susan Graham as Marguerite, Marcello Giordani as Faust and John Reylea as Mephistopheles. James Levine could not have been the perfect conductor bringing back this production to the Met. It has not been performed here in over 100 years.
Not everyone though was thrilled with this innovative style. At intermission, overheard in the ladies room line was a little old lady chastising Peter Gelb for his approach to this production. "It's utter nonsense", she declared. "Purely and totally nonsense. You can teach dogs, monkeys and horses to walk backwards too. This is not an opera. It's a symphonic poem and it belongs to the cinema!".
Outspoken and opinionated, she takes a very firm stand against this and all future productions under Gelb's flagship and swore that she'll write the Met out of her will and will not renew her subscription of 60 years. She is one dissatisfied benefactor. All because of change from tradition.
La Damnation de Faust where art meets technology. I feel privileged to have witnessed this change. (Sorry about the blurry picture of the stage; that was a strictly forbidden stolen shot).
