Donald Runnicles did not beat around the bush.  The San Francisco Opera's
music director opened a symposium this evening on the company's upcoming
production of "La damnation de Faust " by going to the source.  Berlioz
did *not* write the work as an opera, Runnicles said, proceeding to lead
a spirited bilingual discussion about the *staging* of the work.

With three participants from Germany, statements were made mostly in
German, Runnicles (a veteran of opera companies in that country) and
associate director Laura Berman translating.

Angela Denoke, making her SFO debut in the role of Marguerite, spoke
little and managed English just fine.  But stage director Thomas Langhoff
and designer Jurgen Rose stuck with German, and there was much talk about
Goethe.  Dramaturg Wolfgang Willaschek did not participate, but there
were references to his work.  At the end of the evening, a question from
the audience sought reassurance: "It is a French opera, isn't it?"

Well, yes, Langhoff said, "Goethe's poetry is in the French." David
Kuebler, who sings the role of Faust, said "It is the quintessential
French opera."

Opera?  Berlioz specified everything painstakingly for the 1846 premiere,
from the seating of the orchestra (splitting the violins, perhaps for
the first time) to the position of the chorus, etc., but he called it a
"dramatic legend." The overwhelming majority of performances since have
been in a concert setting.

(Runnicles pointed out that Berlioz had planned to revise the work as a
"proper opera" in 1847, to be called "Mephistopheles," but "The Damnation
of Faust" it remained - unsuccessful back then, becoming the composer's
most popular work after his death.)

So why offer it as a fully staged opera, with the story's impossible
demands on a visual presentation - 10 scenes quickly switching from
Hungary to Hamburg...  to Faust and Mephistopheles taking to the air
long before Kitty Hawk?

There was no simple, direct answer to the question, and although
everybody on the panel supported the project, they often appeared to
speak in favor of the concert presentation.  Action, Kuebler said, should
"not over-illustrate" the story.  Many of the work's "pictures," Runnicles
said, are "painted in the music...  the orchestra having a special role,
often carrying the melody, while the singers stand back."

Concert versions are much more frequent, said Langhoff (who staged a
famous/infamous version in Germany more than a decade ago), and "you
can close your eyes" in a stage-it-yourself version.  But the drama, the
director said, "begs to be shown....  you must give life to the static
moments." Berlioz thought of "Faust" subconsciously as an opera, one of
the panel suggested.

Runnicles - quoting, in an uncertain context, Mendelssohn's dictum of
"genius without talent" about Berlioz - pointed at the lack of technology
back in the composer's time, suggesting that it takes a movie to do
justice to the work's wide-ranging, varied, contrasting action.

There has been widespread publicity about "sex scenes" in the upcoming
production, but the only reference to the topic this evening came in
form of a quote from Willaschek: "The scandal is not the seduction, but
Faust stepping over Marguerite's body to sing of the beauty of nature."

The symposium ended before the question of economy could be raised.
Can an opera company with an accumulated deficit approaching $20 million
afford to double or triple the cost of the "dramatic legend" when fully
staged?

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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