Went to see Faust at the S.Fe Opera on Weds night. Did the sushi-tailgate thing aforehand, and then carried through with actually going to the performance rather than No-pera-ing it. They pulled out most of the stops on this one and even included the "ballet" section at the end which was originally added because the French had to have dancing girls somewhere in any show they attended. This made the whole thing last over three (3!) hours which was about an hour too long for the boy-meets-devil-meets-girl-loses-everything story. But fun anyway.
One interesting bit in the staging makes me wonder exactly who is tweaking whom. In the Marguerite-goes-to-church scene, Mephistopheles is the priest playing the organ. She takes her baby into the confessional and ole-Meph sets up in the ajoining compartment. He slowly creeps through the screen between the sections and pulls the baby out of her arms. Then the entire congregation turns out to be wearing red demon masks. It's incredibly creepy good... But... Is this little bit of stage-craft specified in the original or left to the reader? It basically sets up the Catholic Church as the Great Satan. If it is original I would more expect it from the Protestant Germans, not the Catholic French. If it's Santa Fe's Own, then maybe the local catholic population is too poor to attend the opera? Considering the brouhaha over the topless angel Guadalupe collage at the Folk Museum a few years ago you'd think someone would notice.
Two thumbs up. M-bob says check it out at SRO prices.
No comments:
Post a Comment