OPERA REVIEW : Brave New ‘Faust’ Gives the Devil and Gounod Their Due

Poor old “Faust.” Dear old “Faust.”

Gounod’s marvelously, unabashedly treacly version--the Germans say per version--of Goethe’s epic drama used to be a happy staple in everyman’s repertory. Then the world grew anti-Romantic, if not sophisticated. Then the frailties of French opera fell into disrepair, if not disrepute. Then came the wise-guy directors.

“Faust” hasn’t fared all that well lately. The most recent rethinking at the Metropolitan Opera turned out to be a fancy theatrical fiasco. Frank Corsaro’s production at the Music Center turned out to be a clumsy fusion of Industrial Revolution cliches and mystical mumbo-jumbo, and the music-making didn’t salvage much.

And now we have a brave new “Faust” at the San Francisco Opera, staged by Nicolas Joel, designed by Gerard Howland, conducted by Patrick Summers and sensitively cast with an ensemble dominated by the ever-charismatic Mephistopheles of Samuel Ramey. The devil and Gounod are finally getting their due.

The controversial participants are Joel and Howland. Although they demonstrate ample respect and sympathy for the familiar Medieval narrative--and, perhaps more important, for Gounod musical translation--their “Faust” evolves in a universe of abstraction and symbolism.

The stage is virtually bare except for a huge, tilted disc on a turntable (shades of Wieland Wagner). Mood is essentially defined by lighting (Thomas J. Munn in charge), locale by props. Choral movement emerges picturesquely stylized, and the central action--more realistic in maneuver--is pushed downstage.

Although there is nothing revolutionary here, some of the expressive details are as irksome as they are obvious. And some are cheap.

The aged, hyper-scholarly Faust of the first scene takes an agonized nap within--repeat, within--the pages of a book thrice his size. The devil arrives amid the first of too many puffs of smoke in a tattered suit that contradicts the text. Fussy cathedral spires flank the central disk at perverse angles. Carefree celebrants on stilts stalk the Kermesse but have to be helped on and off the playing area, awkwardly. Lovesick Siebel is inexplicably turned into a pitiful fellow on crutches, cruelly mocked by the throng. A tiny casket, presumably bearing Marguerite’s child, arrives during the Walpurgis Night (restored minus ballet) and stays to adorn the uplifting finale.

Still, the director and designer compensate for passing lapses with a series of inspired images. They have tried nobly to create a “Faust” without cliches. The starkness of the basic unit accommodates poetic definition as well as swift scene changes.

A looming gargoyle, subtly illuminated in the background, connotes evil in a single ominous stroke. The absence of kitsch angels and greeting-card transfiguration poses at ascension time heightens the delicate pathos of the climax; the imprisoned Marguerite merely rises, drops her shackles and slowly extends her arms.

An abiding concern for credibility makes the protagonists poignant figures in an elemental conflict. Gone and not missed are the usual opera singers doing their extrovert things, casually and by rote.

Many of Walter Mahoney’s picturesque costumes are new. Many, no doubt, were collected from the warehouse. In either case, they sustain tradition and convention comfortably.

It is fashionable these days to dismiss Gounod’s score as period parlor pap, and there may be some justification in the dismissal. But Summers conducted “Faust” on Sunday afternoon the only possible way--as if it were a profound, deathless masterpiece.

He brought rare vigor to the tumultuous passages, exquisite sensitivity to the lyrical indulgences, and he never allowed tension to flag at either extreme. He also accompanied the singers with extraordinary flexibility and sympathy. This was enlightened, eminently stylish leadership.

Ramey’s Mephisto proved hale, hearty and splendidly sonorous as always (especially at top range). He toyed knowingly with the text and wittily with the bag of satanic tricks literally provided by the director. Wonder of wonders, he managed to get through an entire performance without once baring his hairy chest, and he invoked telling memories of Norman Treigle as he lolled on his back, caressing Siebel’s flowers with mock sensuality, at the close of the Garden Scene.

Richard Leech brought fabulously easy top tones to the title role and reasonable ardor, too. He aroused some alarm when his lyric tenor turned raspy under pressure and made one wish he would deign to sing softly more often. Still, he held his own in lofty company.

Nancy Gustafson introduced a willowy and vulnerable Marguerite who broke all hearts as the tragedy mounted and sang exquisitely (too bad about the missing trills). This was no diva doing her displays, no storybook heroine going through quaint charades. This was a tormented innocent tracing an inevitable course from betrayal to madness to salvation.

Rodney Gilfry, baritone stalwart of Los Angeles opera, made a highly auspicious San Francisco debut as Valentin, exuding macho fervor and singing with far more security than he had mustered in the same role at the Music Center. Catherine Cook made much of the silly-old-goose platitudes of Dame Marthe Schwerdtlein, and Philip Skinner swaggered imposingly in the truncated duties of Wagner.

Susan Quittmeyer was billed for the Hosenrolle of Siebel, but the mezzo-soprano who showed up as Marguerite’s young suitor was clearly someone else. Quittmeyer, we were later informed, fell victim to flu symptoms after the curtain had risen. Her duties were instantly assumed--lock, stock and crutch--by her understudy, Zheng Cao, who acted with total security and sang sweetly (too bad the second aria is cut in this production). The young Shanghai native had participated in one student matinee as a silly sister in “Cenerentola,” but this was her first appearance in a grown-up performance.

* “Faust” continues at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, tonight and Friday at 8 p.m., Nov. 5 at 2, Nov. 8 at 7:30, Nov. 11 and 16 at 8. $21 to $125 (standing room $8). (415) 864-3330.