Berlioz - La Damnation de Faust / Cambreling, Kasarova, Groves, White, Salzburger Festspiele
The DVD cover art is ominous enough. What looks like the outside of a  crumbling ancient Roman aqueduct dominates the stage, with a multitiered  cylinder in front. Is this what the 1999 Salzburg Festival had in mind for poor  old Faust in Hector Berlioz's involving and original "legend dramatique in four  acts"? Apparently so. Stage directors Alex Olle and Carlos Padrissa's demented  take on a work that has been variously staged or presented simply in concert  form is so disastrous that it's actually worth a look. (In its defense, it's  possible that this staging needed to be experienced in person, where its  physical monumentality might have approximated themasterly score.)Musically, this is a superlative performance: Paul Groves is a sympathetic  Faust, Willard White is an appropriately menacing Mephistopheles, and Vesselina  Kasarova is an exquisite Marguerite. Sylvain Cambreling sensitively conducts the  Staatskapelle Berlin, and two excellent choirs' vocal contributions should not  go unnoticed. (However, condolences to those choir members stuck in that  ludicrous cylinder.) Both visual presentation and sound are, as usual for  Arthaus Musik discs, first-rate; only the staging itself comes off as less than  worthwhile.--Kevin Filipski