Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Few characters have inspired as many interpretations as Goethe’s Faust, the scholar who makes a pact with the devil in exchange for youth, knowledge and pleasure. Adaptations have taken many musical forms, from the grand operas of Gounod and Boito to the intimate lieder of Schubert and Beethoven. Hector Berlioz was never one for conventional genres, and he called his Damnation de Faust a légende dramatique. Part opera and part oratorio, one can see where Berlioz felt constrained by the available stage technology of the era and instead assigned the drama to the orchestra and chorus.It was a fitting work to close Leon Botstein’s annual festival at Bard College in upstate New York, which combined academic talks with full-scale operas. As talented as Botstein might be as a scholar and educator, his conducting leaves something to be desired. Though the American Symphony Orchestra played with precision and gleaming tone, Botstein’s sluggish, inflexible conducting drained all colour out of Berlioz’s score. The Bard Festival Chorale sang with enthusiasm, but their Easter hymns and drunken tavern songs and hellish incantations sounded the same. Berlioz incorporated a rousing Hungarian march into the score as an orchestral showpiece, but it sounded leaden rather than dazzling.Luckily the soloists were more impressive, even down to the smallest parts, such as Stefan Egerstrom’s charismatic Brander. He was onstage for a matter of minutes, but transformed his aria about a drunk rat into a showstopper. Marguerite also did not spend much time onstage but got two of Berlioz’s most beautiful arias. Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke has a big, bright voice that sliced through the orchestra and easily encompassed all of the role’s vocal demands but at times overwhelmed Berlioz’s intimate writing for the character. It was a thrill, though, to hear the climax of her big aria sung with such full-throated passion.In the title role, up-and-coming tenor Joshua Blue impressed with the elegance and flexibility of his voice. He brought a warm, beguiling sound and nuanced phrasing to his paean to nature and showed an impressive upper register, soft in his love duet with Marguerite and ringing above the orchestra as he faced Alfred Walker’s menacing Méphistophélès. Walker is a staple at the festival, and it is easy to see why — he brought a resonant bass-baritone, clearly projected text and real charisma to the stage. His devil was suave and elegant, with a sneering sense of irony, and was genuinely scary as he dragged the hero down to hell.★★★☆☆fishercenter.bard.edu
