Chicago.(In Reviews: from around the world: North America)(Faust)(Opera Review)

The once-ubiquitous Faust has suffered a decided fall in popularity in the post-modern age. Most attempts to blow the dust off Gounod's Victorian morality fable with deconstructed, high-concept stagings have jarred with the sweeping Romanticism of the music. Lyric Opera of Chicago's successful new production, by Robert Perdziola and Frank Corsaro, trusts the beauty of the score and renders the picce as the straightforward, Gothic tale it is meant to be.

Marcus Haddock made an impressive Lyric debut as Faust (seen Dec. 20), the role that introduced him to Met audiences last season. His voice is a lyric tenor of some weight, with an appealing sweetness of timbre. His tone was occasionally wiry in sustained pitches on high, but Haddock acquitted himself admirably with the notorious climax of "Salut! demeure." Samuel Ramey repeated his definitive Mephistopheles, first seen at Lyric in the 1987-88 season. The deep burgundy velvet of the voice has worn a bit, and he doesn't quire nail you to your seat as he once did. However, the technique is still firm as a rock, and Ramey's silver-tongued devil remains a world-class assumption. Phillip Torre brought an attractive lyric baritone to Valentin, his timbre vibrantly masculine, if lightish and a trifle underpowered for the cavernous Civic Theater. The Siebel of Lauren McNeese was delightful--exuberantly characterized, with an aptly bright shimmer at the top of the range, like ripples in clear water. Judith Christin's Marthe added welcome comic relief amid the sermonizing of the libretto, and Quinn Kelsey made much of Wagner's few lines.

The evening fielded an exciting, dark-horse victory for the splendid Marguerite of Erin Marie Wall, who sang the last four performances of the run. Wall proved herself a real find, offering a sizable lyric voice with a respectable trill for the jewel song, and really came into her own with the drama of Act III. The final trio with Haddock and Ramey was gorgeous and brought the evening to a most satisfying musical denouement.

Perdziola's naturalistic production, a frame of gray stonework edifices modified by drops and mobile set pieces, may seem familiar to regular subscribers, influenced as it is by the previous Colavecchia/Corsaro mounting. Corsaro's pointedly specific direction remains essentially the same (Mephistopheles still creepily appears as a corpse in Faust's lab), but the visuals are fresher and more attractive, evoking a feeling of period while avoiding heaviness. There is an enchanting effect for the fall of night in the garden scene--a beautiful blue wash aglow with twinkling stars--and the narrow, interminable staircase descending into Marguerite's dungeon is oppressively atmospheric.

Mark Elder led an admirable reading of the score, an account brimming with French grace and reflecting the grandeur of the music without overpowering the singers. Choral work was superb, the soldiers' interludes particularly virile and enlivening. Faust is perhaps most effectively experienced through direct emotional response to its ravishing music, unencumbered by over-analysis of its moralistic philosophy. Though unremarkable by way of innovation, Lyric's fine production allows for precisely that.

Critical opinion of Saint-Saens's one hit, Samson et Dalila, often veers toward self-conscious patronization, as though learned men were embarrassed to admit they really like it. In truth, the opera is hardly a masterpiece. A certain dramatic rigidity, particularly in Act I, betrays the work's original oratorio concept, and design excess has tended to render it as glitzy, quasi-Biblical kitsch. However, when Samson et Dalila is as intelligently produced as it was in Lyric Opera of Chicago's stunning revival (seen Dec. 18), it can be a terrific night at the opera.

Smoldering at the center of the Lyric production were Jose Cura and Olga Borodina, in her long-awaited Lyric debut. The Argentinean tenor was last seen here in 1994, a promising young talent subbing for Placido Domingo in Fedora. Cura returns an international star in what has become a signature role for him, and with good reason. He unleashed torrents of ringing heroic tone within a dramatic conception that remained convincing, from the eroticism of the Dalila interludes to the poignant connection with the child in the final scenes. His voice seemed to gain power through ...