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Balázs Kovalik’s opulent staging of Boito's Faustian opera threatens to overshadow the singers, but it makes for an exciting spectacle.

Mefistofele proves a mixed blessing: good meets evil, devils fight with angels, lovely lyricism alternates with bombast and second-rate material.

Rarely performed, Boito’s Mefistofele is an audacious, spectacular opera, needing an audacious, spectacular staging to do it justice. That’s exactly what it gets in Balázs Kovalik’s production for Hungarian State Opera.

Despite some outstanding choral work, the State Opera's new production of Boito's popular take on the Faust legend falls short of its heavenly aspirations.

The 91st season of the San Francisco Opera opened with a revival of Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele in Robert Carsen’s well-traveled production. The staging extends Shakespeare’s metaphor: if the whole world’s a stage, then heaven, quite naturally, must be an opera house.