Drawn to the devilish side of performing

American bass-baritone Eric Owens joins the NZSO and NZ Opera for The Damnation of Faust.

When it comes to operatic villains, basses and bass-baritones get the plum roles.

Eric Owens, recently named Vocalist of the Year by Musical America magazine, is relishing the part of Mephistopheles in Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust, presented tomorrow by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

"I know it's all make-believe but I do enjoy playing out this fantasy of being the catalyst for great evil," the American bass-baritone says, "all the time knowing that it comes without any serious consequences."

Owens (pictured) has always been drawn to characters on the antagonistic side, making his Wagnerian debut 7 years ago as the malevolent Alberich in Robert Lepage's New York production of Das Rheingold. It was a performance praised by the noted critic Alex Ross as "so richly layered that it may become a part of the history of the work".

Recalling it now, the singer still can't get over the Canadian director's state-of-the-art technology, including massive projections coming from cameras the size of a coin.

Tomorrow's more formal, concert-style Berlioz reminds Owens of a similar treatment of Strauss' Elektra at the Verbier Festival last month, in which he played the role of Oreste.

"Having already been in a fully staged Elektra, it was amazing how much orchestral detail I was able to hear, particularly from the woodwind," he says.

In some cases, Owens feels there can be distinct advantages in sharing the stage with the orchestra.

"There's none of the distance and time delay that you get with an orchestra in the pit. After all, that proscenium arch is nothing but a big ol' doorway, with the orchestra out there and down below with a wall behind them that's blocking a lot of sound from us. The players are in another room, basically. In a concert version, we can sit back and just ride the crest of this sound, as long as we have a sensitive conductor who's not going to derail us."

Clearly there's no danger of this with Edo de Waart at the helm and Owens is enjoying finally being able to work alongside the NZSO's musical director. "Until now, the calendar has never smiled at us."

De Waart would seem to be Owens' ideal, someone who breathes in sympathy with the musicians he's conducting.

"That collective breathing is what I look for, whether it's with singers or a whole orchestra," Owens explains. "When a conductor can get this happening, you have real magic."

There should be magic aplenty in Berlioz's "dramatic legend", which features, along with four soloists playing out the classic Goethe story, an orchestra of 93 players and a chorus of 70, supplied by New Zealand Opera.

"Berlioz may be a bit of an acquired taste but there's something marvellously kooky about this work," Owens says. "Like Beethoven, he was a composer very much ahead of his time and there are things in this Faust that would seem modern today, let alone back in 1846."

Lowdown
What: NZSO concert opera, The Damnation of Faust
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow at 2.30pm.