Competent but uninspiring: Gounod and McVicar’s Faust returns to The Royal Opera

What kind of opera is Faust? A grand spectacular? An intimate tragedy? A morality tale? Gothic horror? Gounod’s opera mixes all these things freely and Sir David McVicar’s well-travelled 2004 production is happy to lurch from one trope to the next, presenting arresting visual images as it goes. Méphistophélès materialises on stage as a statue which melts into life. Bacchus’s tavern is transmuted into the “Cabaret l’Enfer”. Méphistophélès is resplendent in spangly ball gown for the Walpurgis Night witches’ sabbath. The light of divine providence shines through dry ice in the organ loft at the end. There are plenty more.

With little stability of genre, it’s left to the orchestra and the sheer force of personality of the singers to provide the thread of continuity that binds the evening together. Maurizio Benini and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House settled in very well from the start, moving with aplomb from the gentle, introspective overture to the passionate yearning of Faust to the fireworks of the tavern scene. For this latest revival, The Royal Opera had originally cast two very charismatic singers indeed – Erwin Schrott and Lisette Oropesa – but both withdrew. It fell to Adam Palka and Carolina López Moreno to carry the show, together with Stefan Pop in the title role, with mixed results.

The strongest of the three was Palka, who made for a jaunty, sardonic Méphistophélès. With looks and demeanour reminiscent of Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, he provided plenty of vocal heft to be the driving force of the narrative. But the performance was fairly one-dimensional, dominated by the devil’s relishing of his own powers. That served well in a barnstorming Golden Calf aria, less so in the Act 4 "Vous qui faites l'endormie", the music of a lover’s serenade matched with acidly sarcastic lyrics.

López Moreno made a confident Covent Garden debut, displaying attractive timbre and pleasant phrasing. Her ballad of the King of Thule was delivered attractively, the subsequent Jewel Song glittered as it should and she was credible in her progression from paragon of virtue to fallen woman. But there was a fearful shortage of consonants, making it impossible to understand more than a few words of her French. While much of the meaning could be deduced from her expression and from surtitles, it compromised the performance, which was also marred by a lack of any obvious chemistry – either positive or negative – with Pop in the title role. He provided the requisite tenor power, but his diction was also less than perfect. His timbre was pleasant enough through most of the register, but when it came to the big notes high up, his voice that tightened up and the sound became unpleasant.

The pleasant vocal surprise of the evening was Boris Pinkhasovich, who turned the normally minor role of Valentin into something really significant – first as a powerful force who one imagines for a moment might stand up to Faust and Mephisto, and then, in Act 4, as the image of blind, impetuous fury. His round baritone timbre and utter commitment to the text made me want to hear more of him. As Siébel, Hongni Wu was tuneful if ineffectual – but that’s in the nature of the character. Monika-Evelin Liiv, another late replacement, was a suitably breezy Marthe.

We can all speculate over how much better or not this production might have been with its original cast. Ultimately, a fine orchestral performance, a powerfully sardonic Méphistophélès and a series of striking visuals weren’t enough to turn this Faust into a compelling evening. There was enough to enjoy, but the three hours and forty minutes felt long.