Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor –

Charles Gounod’s opera “Faust” may be one of the most loved classical operas in the world but it has not been seen in San Antonio since the late John Alexander sang the title role in 1969. That was fifty years ago!

Fortunately, Opera San Antonio has decided to break that dry spell. The new “Faust” will premiere Thursday, May 9, at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, with a repeat performance on Saturday, May 11.

“It’s a favorite opera of mine,” said stage director Garnett Bruce who is also an artistic adviser to OSA.   “I did an internship with Harold Prince in 1990 when he directed it at the Metropolitan Opera and it jump-started my career. I love the mystery that surrounds everything, and the music, of course – beautiful voices and a full orchestra- that music energizes the air around you in this beautiful space.”

He is referring to the H-E-B Performance Hall in the Tobin which was built with good acoustics in mind to serve as the permanent home for the San Antonio Symphony. The latter will be in the pit both Thursday and Saturday led by Robert Tweten, a much-in-demand conductor who has recently joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory as the music director of the opera department.

The Faust legend had been around for a few centuries in Germany before the great poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe incorporated it in his play by the same name, which, in turn, served as the basis for Gounod’s opera. At the center of the tale is the aging scholar Faust, who sells his eternal soul to the devil in order to regain youth and the excitements that come with it. In this new guise, he pursues and seduces a young innocent girl named Marguerite who soon becomes pregnant. Angered, her brother Valentin challenges Faust to a duel and gets killed. As you may expect, things go from bad to worse from there on. It’s a dramatic tragedy, with a lesson, carried on the wings of sweeping French Romantic music.

 While some directors and designers reinterpret and modernize certain aspects of the work, the San Antonio presentation will stay faithful to Gounod with relatively minor changes.

“We are presenting the traditional production, “said Bruce. “We want to build an audience for grand opera in traditional settings.”

 The production is a recreation of famed producer/director Francesca Zambello’s version of “Faust,” originally conceived for the Houston Opera with the help of artist Earl Staley who designed the sets. His original paintings for the 1986 show are temporarily displayed at the Tobin, courtesy of the McNay Art Museum’s Tobin Collection of Theater Arts. Bruce hopes that audience members will take a close look at the sets because there are a lot of special touches the artist incorporated in most of the elements such as trees and greenery. In fact, you may see masks, strange birds, devils.

To stage an opera of this caliber is an enormous undertaking, noted the director, requiring a lot of coordination of separate elements. From 63 musicians in the pit and 36 chorus members to 18 extras, 20 stage hands, 6 designers and, of course, the seven named characters, it’s a lot of people, “and they all have their opinions and ideas,” he quipped.

Appearing in the lead roles are: tenor Joshua Dennis as Faust, bass-baritone David Pittsinger as Mephistopheles (the Devil), and lyric soprano Yunah Lee as Marguerite. All three have performed nationally and internationally, winning critical praise for both their singing and acting.

Musical highlights include Marguerite’s Jewels Song; Faust’s cavatina “Salut, demure chaste et pure” that he sings to Marguerite, and the soaring final aria sung by the three leads.

Looking around the grand theater where we sat during the interview, Bruce motioned to indicate our surrounding and said: “This is a legacy for the next 100 years. And we’ll be singing Gounod’s opera into the memories of these walls.”

“Faust” 7:30 p.m. May 9 and May11; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle; for tickets, $35-$184, call box office 210-223-8624 or go to www.tobincenter.org