FROM AROUND THE WORLD: MONTREAL.(Brief Article)(Review)

L'Opera de Montreal's new production of Mefistofele (seen March 12) is the last that departing artistic director Bernard Uzan will stage before he steps down in September. Conceived, designed and built in Montreal, this Mefistofele incorporates spectacle, to be sure, but on a scale that most opera houses can accommodate, and rental fees are anticipated to justify the $500,000 (Canadian) price tag. Like Faust caught between good and evil, this production struggled mightily to offset foolishness with intelligence, vulgarity with inspiration, borrowed ideas (from Robert Carsen's much-traveled production) with innovation.

Allen Charles Klein's sets and costumes were for the most part drab or downright ugly. The title character looked as if he had stepped out of a cartoon, while costumes for the remainder of the cast were merely dull. Throughout the production a pair of huge, tasteless Renaissance paintings flanked the stage, along with a confused assortment of bric-a-brac. Dominating the stage during much of the prologue was a grotesque representation of the Crucifixion, before which flagellants enacted grisly rites, effectively negating the scene's splendid music. The garden scene appeared to take place in a stunted vineyard.

Uzan's staging was also fraught with problems. He arranged the chorus in stalls in three semicircular tiers at the back but gave them nothing to do except sing and watch supernumeraries act before them. The supposedly festive crowd in Act I seemed more lethargic than lively. And did the blind Faust in the final scene have to tap the floor so noisily with his stick for two full ...