September 1998

La Damnation de Faust (1854-56) - Anne Sofie von Otter (Marguerite); Keith Lewis (Faust); Bryn Terfel (Mephistopheles); Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus/Myun-Whun Chung - Deutsche Grammophon 453 500-2 - two discs 123: 56 DDD

Myun-Whun Chung's recordings of the Symphonie Fantastique and Harold in Italy have already marked him out as a distinctive Berlioz interpreter. His dynamic, rather spiky and nervy style lends itself to the composer's constant play of rhythms and complex textures, while bringing out the immense, sweeping energy and vision that binds them together. However, in Berlioz's typically individual, not to say eccentric, reinterpretation of Goethe's Faust, Chung excels himself, leavening this energy with, to my ear, more warmth and lyricism to produce one of the very best recordings available.

Bravura passages like the Hungarian March and Pandaemonium are built up rather than over-accelerandoed, making them all the more shattering at the climax, while lyrical passages such as the Elbe Scene are taken with unusual fluency and delicacy. He is ably supported by the Philharmonia players and chorus; the latter seem a touch overpowering in the Peasants' Dance, although this may be a quirk of the otherwise excellent and spacious recording. Chung offers a vivid alternative to the warmth of Davis and the incandescent excitement of Solti, and far excels two more recent recordings - Nagano's somewhat strident reading, with a notably poor Faust, and Dutoit's, flashy but insufficiently detailed, with a predominantly disappointing cast. That is certainly not the case here.

Lewis and Otter have already recorded these roles with credit, Otter in Gardiner's flawed but interesting recording, and together on Solti's video version. Lewis is a lightish but elegant and mellifluous Faust, his fine tone disturbed by only a couple of strangulated high notes; his French is well delivered, although he misses some of the natural elisions. Von Otter is sometimes rather a cool singer, and her Marguerite for Solti seemed under-involved; here, though, she sings with beautiful tone and the right yearning nuance, even if she cannot equal Janet Baker for sheer heartache. Terfel has arrived at that stage of success where critics suddenly drop the laurels and reach for the brickbats. Here, though, he justifies himself brilliantly as an almost intimate, mercurial Mephistopheles, indulging his propensity for extreme piano, but in the service of an idiomatic characterization, beguiling, vulgar and seductive by turns, only revealing his snarling power at the moment of triumph. Von Halem's Brander is less fluent but suitably robust. Which leaves only one nitpick, the choice of an inevitably underpowered boy soprano as the Celestial Voice. Otherwise this is a splendidly persuasive recording.

- Michael Scott Rohan