Faust by Charles Gounod directed by Tobias Kratzer film screening

TheatreHD and Tsaritsyno State Museum-Reserve present the project Tsaritsyno. Opera at the Movies.

On 8 January 2022, Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve will present the opera Faust directed by Tobias Kratzer.

The Paris Opera produced and filmed this Faust in the most pandemic of times, and so the chorus and supes were on stage wearing masks. However, this does not seem to have distorted director Tobias Kratzer’s intention but brings the story even closer to the present day. Kratzer, one of the wittiest and comparatively young interpreters of the opera classics, brings the story of Faust from a medieval German village to contemporary Paris. Paris of bourgeois boulevard flats with libraries and plaster mouldings and poor suburban arrondissements. The plot unfolds like a modern Netflix series, in which maximum realism may well be combined with the craziest mysticism and mythology. In this strange multi-format and multi-screen reality, Benjamin Bernheim (Faust), Ermonela Jaho (Marguerite) and Christian van Horn (Méphistophélès) are perfectly existing and stunningly singing at a brisk tempo by maestro Lorenzo Viotti.

When it comes to ancient operatic themes, Tobias Kratzer’s sarcasm is so inventive and charming that his Tannhäuser was greeted with applause even in Bayreuth, a Wagnerian citadel that is extremely jealous of distortions of the composer’s intent. And in the rest of the opera world, even more so. What can one say if his career started with a prank: Kratzer submitted two directorial concepts for the same opera under different pseudonyms to a famous theatre competition and won both entries.

For all the sharpness of the director’s eye and quite contemporary realities that tell the sad and brutal story of an aging bourgeois trying to recapture the pleasures of youth at the expense of those living in poor and seedy Parisian suburbs, his production is neither drab nor boring. The set is devised in such a witty and varied way, with so many changes, including the utterly fantastic, that it takes your breath away.

But what makes this performance even more pleasing is that the brilliant acting of the soloists is matched by the dizzying quality of the singing. Belgian tenor Benjamin Bernheim is Singer of the Year 2020 in France, and deservedly so – the gruelling and difficult Faust with its high C is sung with inspiration and grace.

Ermonela Jaho as Marguerite exists as a big theatre and film star (the production is very much an online shoot with close-ups), but her quivering and passionate soprano effortlessly copes with all the difficulties of the part. Critics don’t call her the best ‘singing actress’ of today for nothing.

Bass-baritone Christian van Horn is the perfect Méphistophélès – in looks, acting, and vocals. His voice is voluminous, fluid, and velvety.