[Met Performance] CID:327820



Faust
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, March 29, 1997
Broadcast




Faust (699)
Charles Gounod | Jules Barbier/Michel Carr?
Faust
Richard Leech

Marguerite
Ren?e Fleming

M?phistoph?l?s
Samuel Ramey

Valentin
Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Siebel
Jane Bunnell

Marthe
Diane Elias

Wagner
Hector V?squez


Conductor
Julius Rudel





Broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio Sirius XM channel 75
Streamed at metopera.org

Review 1:

Bill Zakariasen in the Westsider
Met Redeems Itself With ?Faust?

The Met?s revival of Gounod?s ?Faust? the following week boasted a pretty good cast headed by Richard Leech in the title role (no tenor has a better high C in ?Salut demeure? these days}. A strong Marguerite in Renee Fleming (though she exhibited a very strange trill in the ?Jewel Song?) and probably the best Mephistopheles available today in Samuel Ramey. In addition, it?s unlikely a better (or better-looking) baritone than Dmitri Hvorostovsky can be found currently to sing Valentin. Really odd that this superb singer was brought over only for three performances of this relatively thankless part (even stranger that he?s not scheduled at all at the Met for next season), but those of us who heard him here, however fleetingly, can consider themselves fortunate.


The Harold Prince production of ?Faust? still looks good enough to make one wonder why it?s still being performed in abridged form ? Marguerite?s ?Spinning Aria? is out now, as is the entire ?Walpurgis Nacht? scene, though Julius Rudel?s very spacious conducting made the opera seem as long as it was when the Met played it virtually uncut.



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