Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust has long been described as a work that resists classification. Berlioz eventually called it a “dramatic legend” after tinkering with the idea of “concert opera” or just simply “legend”. It was never intended to be staged, despite numerous attempts to do so, mostly unsuccessful. And though Edward Gardner has frequently conducted it in the theatre, in this instance he gave us the work in concert with the London Philharmonic, a performance that reminded us first and foremost just how much the score is driven by Berlioz’s often astonishing choral and orchestral writing.
Gardner’s interpretation gained weight and momentum as it went, from the uneasy pastoral of the start to the metaphysical contrasts of the closing choruses in hell and heaven respectively, the ferocity of the former utterly terrifying, the latter finally achieving the timeless tranquility to which the music has previously aspired but never attained. Exemplary playing resulted in textures by turns broodingly introspective, beguilingly sensuous and eerily malign, with sinister brass and woodwind flickering like demonic fire.
