This is the first time I have seen La Damnation de Faust attempted as an opera rather than as a sort of dramatised cantata. It works very well in Robert Lepage's imaginative multimedia production. To me multimedia usually means people performing on stage while irrelevant pictures are projected behind them. Not in this production though. There are two layers of back-projection with live performers inside the sandwich so it is difficult to tell what is live and what is recorded. The set is divided into 24 boxes so that it looks superficially like a giant sudoku. There are dancers and acrobats in every box doing something slightly different. I particularly enjoyed the Hungarian march with the soldiers marching backwards and the Amen fugue in the Act I tavern scene.
Marcello Giordani is an effective Faust, much better than his performance as Pinkerton in the current Met season. He has a particularly good Act II soliloquy although maybe he runs out of some steam towards the end of the opera. John Relyea is a dapper Mephistopheles in what looks like a red leather Robin Hood outfit. Before his entrance there are five Jesuses hanging on neon crosses (don't ask me why) who quickly duck out of the way when he appears.
This version of the Faust story is recognisably similar to that found in Gounod's opera or Boito's Mefistofole. It also suffers from the same drawback of being too episodic. The narrative begins to get confused when Susan Graham's Marguerite appears in Act II (no fault of hers) and goes downhill from there. It ends up in a Hell that looks remarkably like an overcrowded solarium with rows of men in shorts tanning themselves before the flickering flames.
This is an interesting realisation of Berlioz's Légende Dramatique which, ultimately, does not quite convince me that it can hold its own on the operatic stage.