“Beautiful music, hidden danger”

A new production of Charles Gounod’s opera Faust to a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré after motifs from the legend and the eponymous play by Goethe is being rehearsed at the Mariinsky Theatre. It will be premiered on 26 and 27 April.

The opera Faust is one of the most popular French operas, second only to Carmen, but some individual arias and songs from it are even more popular as stage “hits” – Marguerite’s “jewel song”, Siébel’s romance, Valentin’s cavatina, Méphistophélès’ couplets and serenade and Faust’s cavatina. Today it is hard to believe that the first production at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris enjoyed little success – the public did not like it and no publisher agreed to print the score. Antoine Choudens was the most shrewd publisher (later he was the first to print Bizet’s Carmen and works by the young Debussy). Having purchased the rights to the masterpiece, despite its lack of popularity, Choudens was also its first “producer”, fervently offering Faust to other theatres. In 1860 this French opera was performed at German theatres. And only after the opera began its triumphant march from one European and American theatre to another (it was staged in New York in 1863) did it finally come to the attention of the Opéra de Paris where it was staged in 1869, though for this to take place the composer had to add the ballet scene Walpurgis Night. The same year, on 15 September 1869, the opera was staged at the Mariinsky Theatre.

The opera is now being staged by Isabella Bywater, who has already worked at the Mariinsky Theatre as a production designer for Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream (production by Claudia Solti). Faust is Bywater’s first work as a production director. Isabella Bywater is convinced that there is a hidden danger in the music: “It is interesting to listen to beautiful music while at the same time dark forces are afoot on-stage. This incredible counterpoint influences your view of the music – you hear its beauty but at the same time you sense the danger.”

The lead roles are being rehearsed by Khachatur Badalyan, Sergei Semishkur, Alexander Trofimov, Dmitry Voropaev and Nikolai Yemtsov (Dr Faust), Irina Churilova, Yekaterina Goncharova, Violetta Lukyanenko, Oxana Shilova and Eleonora Vindau (Marguerite), Askar Abdrazakov, Ildar Abdrazakov, Vladimir Felyauer and Alexei Tanovitsky (Méphistophélès), Viktor Korotich, Alexei Markov, Vladimir Moroz and Vladislav Sulimsky (Valentin), Nikolai Kamensky, Yevgeny Ulanov and Grigor Verner (Wagner), Yulia Matochkina, Yekaterina Sergeyeva, Irina Shishkova and Mayram Sokolova (Siébel) and Elena Vitman and Svetlana Volkova (Marthe).

Musical Director and Conductor – Valery Gergiev; Stage Director and Set Designer – Isabella Bywater; Costume Designer – Isabella Bywater with the assistance of Nicky Shaw; Lighting Designer Jennifer Schriever.

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