Reviews 2007
Reviews 2007
✭✭✩✩✩
by Charles Gounod, directed by Nicholas Muni
Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto
February 1-24, 2007
The good news is that the Canadian Opera Company is finally staging Gounod’s Faust (1859), a standard repertory work not seen in Toronto since 1985. The bad news is that this concept production directed and designed by Nicholas Muni is unattractive and makes nonsense of the story.
Muni follows the current fad for costuming Faust (David Pomeroy) and the devil Méphistophélès (Egils Silins), to whom he sells his soul in exchange for youth, as mirror images. Unfortunately, Muni takes this twinning to an extreme by having Faust grow more satanic, including sprouting silly horns, and dressing in leather pimp-wear while the devil grows more human. This makes nonsense of many things, most importantly that despite the devil’s influence Faust retains his humanity as is evident in his crushing remorse for having mistreated the village girl Marguerite (Ana Ibarra).
Pomeroy proves he can sing the title role but nuance and characterization are missing. Silins struggles with his lowest notes and doesn’t fully capture the devil’s cynical humour. Ana Ibarra makes Marguerite’s innocence and fragility believable and her singing is a joy. Yet, Brett Polegato outshines them all as Marguerite’s avenging brother Valentin. The rich, heroic sound of his voice and the passion of his acting are absolutely riveting. If everyone performed at his level, one might be able to ignore Muni’s distracting direction.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2007-02-08.
Photo: David Pomeroy and Ana Ibarra. ©Michael Cooper.
2007-02-08
Faust