Mephistopheles
San Francisco Opera Performance
September 14, 2013
The title of this opera is Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is supposed to be the Devil. But this is not about Mephistopheles or the nature of evil. Mephistopheles becomes little more than a tour guide in this opera. It seems to be about Faust more than it is about anything, the aging scholar who trades his soul to the Devil. But it is not clear what he traded it for or what either of them got in the bargain. This opera is a series of disconnected, incomplete vignettes that do not form a coherent narrative or portray any characters with clarity, or depth.
It is a mediocre work by a mediocre mind. I don’t understand why they even staged this. The person who wrote this, Arrigo Bioto, does not understand evil. This opera reflects a typical religious ascetic mentality that associates evil with the body, sex, and especially women, who are the inspirers and the objects of lust. It is a celebration of conservatism, pessimism, asceticism, and archaic religious nonsense. This man is not a deep thinker, not insightful, has no interesting ideas or perspective, and no psychological sophistication. I have an extremely low opinion of him as an intellect.
I wouldn’t say a word against the performance, however. The imaginative staging, the singers, the chorus, the dancers, the costumes, the lighting and sets, create a brilliant spectacle that saves this lumbering monstrosity from becoming a total quagmire. Unfortunately, all of this splendid display is in the service of an insipid concept. If you can just sit there and watch it for its visual brilliance, without thinking too much about what it means or asking yourself what it is all about, you might like it. The nudity, the strip tease, the simulated sex, the dangling penises, are all interesting to watch. If you don’t get much chance to see naked human bodies you might be titillated, but this lurid sensuality does not save the story line, and it is done with a lightheartedness that underlines the shallowness of the whole performance. It is cartoonish. These are caricatures rather than characters. It is not interesting, and it becomes increasingly ridiculous and repulsive as it goes along.
The ending is extremely confusing and idiotic. Faust, after making a bargain to sell his soul to the Devil, ends up going to heaven. Margherita, his lover, whose mother he poisons and whose child is drowned in the ocean is executed (ascetics always blame women for sexual misadventures and punish them severely). Mephistopheles is just a footnote to all of this. He is a kind of master of ceremonies, but is never a principal in the action.
The nature of evil could be an interesting subject and the Devil could be a fascinating character for dramatic portrayal. This opera does not do justice to either of these topics. Someone should write a different opera on this subject. This one should fall into deserved oblivion. It is quite long and slow moving. There are two long intermissions. There is not enough substance to make it worth sitting through. This art form needs an upgrade.
