After its brief detour into magnificence with The Return of Ulysses at the Young Vic, ENO has returned to its hell-bent form with, appropriately enough, a dramatisation of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust.
After its brief detour into magnificence with The Return of Ulysses at the Young Vic, ENO has returned to its hell-bent form with, appropriately enough, a dramatisation of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust. Not that the composer would recognise his work, first performed in 1846, from the production, described in the programme thus: ‘The extraordinary creative journey of Terry Gilliam reaches the operatic stage for the first time’, while the Synopsis begins, ‘Our production follows the trajectory of German art and history from the late-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century’.
I thought that was Wagner’s province — and just in case his spirit should feel offended, the Synopsis makes it clear that one scene is ‘a Wagnerian entertainment staged for the guests’, who are the Nazi high command.
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