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Opera

Bryn Terfel lords it over 'Faust' magnificently

Plus: Through his Teeth and The Crackle at the Linbury Studio, and Prince Igor at the Coliseum

19 April 2014

9:00 AM

19 April 2014

9:00 AM

Faust

Royal Opera House, in rep until 25 April

Through his Teeth; The Crackle

Linbury Studio

Prince Igor

Novaya Opera, Coliseum

There’s a great deal to disapprove of in Gounod’s Faust. It breaks down a pillar of western literature and whisks up what remains into a flouncy French fancy. It turns the hero’s famous striving into mere lust — for a virginal heroine who is cursed by one and all (‘Marguerite! Sois maudite!’, runs the rather-too-catchy refrain), then saved, in a mawkish, tacked-on finale, by celestial powers.

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