I went to see the encore simulcast of Charles Gounod's "Faust" on Wednesday. Des McAnuff reset the opera in the first half of the 20th Century starting with the dropping of the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When Faust regains his youth, they go back the beginning of WWI. They then travel through the Twenties and Thirties and end where they started in the Forties.
Mr. McAnuff recast Faust as a nuclear physicist who is haunted by the destruction of two Japanese towns. HE calls on the devil because he is tired of life and wants to re-experience the rapture of youth. When the devil grants him his wish, Faust loses the heavy overcoat he was wearing and reappears in a white tuxedo and hat circa 1914 (he is also moving much more energetically than before). He only changes tuxedos over the course of the opera. Marguerite is the one who changes clothes between periods. When she first appears and when Faust seduces her, she is wearing a bright blue girlish Victorian dress. Her hair was long with small blue ribbon in the back. The intent was to emphasize her innocence; heck, she looked like she was no less then fifteen or so. After Faust seduces her and she becomes pregnant out of wedlock (the set moves to the 1930's), she wears a long plain skirt, a shawl, and her hair is in a braid in the back. By this time she is much more somber. Faust wears a black tuxedo for the scene where he seduces Marguerite and later when he goes the devil to the Witch's Sabbath.
In the final scene, all Marguerite is wearing is a prison dress and her hair is cropped short (for her execution no doubt). Faust wears this black tuxedo with really narrow grey stripes.
I'm not writing much on this performance because of how long it would take to describe everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment