PHOENIX - A Lady Gaga look-alike makes a guest appearance in Arizona Opera's updated take on Gounod's "Faust" this weekend.
At the final performance of the show's Phoenix run on Sunday, Gaga strutted through a throng of fashionably dressed cool kids just as one started break-dancing.
This is a small part of director Bernard Uzan's vision of "Faust" in 2011, where a tuxedo-clad devil with his dark sunglasses and ponytail mixes with a young bar crowd doing shots. The breakdancer's jerks and contorts are oddly out of rhythm with Gounod's 150-year-old music, impressively played by the orchestra under the baton of Joel Revzen. But his breakdancing is a natural fit.
Uzan's bigger picture goes beyond simply updating the time to present day; he has updated the evil tendencies of the timeless "Faust" story - man sells his soul to the devil for eternal youth and sex - to match modern times. And in the process he has created one of Arizona Opera's most entertaining and compelling productions in years.
Uzan's argument for updating it can be found in today's headlines. The 16th century "Faust" and his corrupted moral compass no longer shock our senses. We've lived through the Casey Anthony trial, Bernie Madoff, criminally excessive corporate pay, Raj Rajaratnam and insider trading, wire-tapping, greed, corruption and Lindsay Lohan's revolving courtroom door - and that's just this year's top stories.
Uzan takes us to the modern-day twisted and dark side with a cruelly handsome Mephistopheles (the incredible bass-baritone Greer Grimsley in superb voice on Sunday) who has no trouble convincing the sexually frustrated Faust (tenor Raúl Melo in his first Arizona Opera appearance) to barter his soul in exchange for youthful vigor.
Words blast on a black curtain: "Sin," "Death," "Evil," "Hate," "Hell," "Loves." Video images show a full moon turning blood red as Faust seduces the gullible flower peddler Marguerite (the dramatic soprano Emily Pulley), his first newly youthful conquest. Marguerite ends up pregnant.
Pulley added just enough urgency to her radiantly warm voice to convince us she was obsessed. When she eventually kills her baby, we are not surprised.
One of the most shocking scenes came in the end when a trio of nuns gathered in a church with statues of Jesus on the cross and saints in various poses. The statues come to life, and when a nun delivers the corpse of Marguerite's baby to the devil, Jesus crawls off his cross and turns his back on her.
Grimsley, who earned a roaring ovation, impressed with a richly complex and pure baritone that pierced the silence and filled Phoenix Symphony Hall. He also showed off some sizable acting chops, giving the devil a devious sense of humor and a sinister side that plumbed the depths of man's greed and vanity.
The audience also was struck by the mesmerizing mezzo-soprano Laura Wilde, a Marion Roose Pullin resident artist who sang the pants role of the lovesick young boy Siébel. She showed off a sturdy, beautiful voice that rang out with delicious effect.
