The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's The Damnation of Faust was a testament to the genius of Hector Berlioz.
The French composer's sprawling cantata cries for a full operatic staging, but would tonight's 93 orchestral musicians have squeezed into the Aotea pit?
Firmly on the town hall stage, under the assured direction of Edo de Waart, the NZSO assumed star status, laying out a veritable treatise of orchestral effects and colours, both on stage and off. The Wellington division of the Freemasons New Zealand Opera Chorus enthusiastically played peasants, students, soldiers, demons and angels from the formality of the choir stalls.
The central issue here is the soul struggle between the young Faust (Andrew Staples) and Mephistopheles (Eric Owens), a confrontation somewhat diluted when the two singers were mostly locked behind music stands with scores. In fact, did this make us more aware of moments of strain in Owens' voice and Staples working hard, and not always convincingly, to meet Berlioz's supertenor demands?
Alisa Kolosova as Marguerite was totally in character and absolutely enthralling; her effortless tone and projection had little need of score consultation.
