CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW / Too tight for comfort: Jan Smaczny on City of Birmingham Touring Opera's production of Gounod's Faust

City of Birmingham Touring Opera's art of reduction has in the past approached the care and subtlety of Bonsai growers. Their shrinking of The Ring and their condensing of the orchestra for Falstaff among others managed to distil the drama rather than reduce it. Sadly, their new version of Gounod's Faust comes over more as a stab at pruning an over-enthusiastic wistaria than a serious attempt to convey the essence of an opera that kept half of Europe on the edge of its seat for an appreciable proportion of the 19th century. Gounod's Faust trades on the grand effect as much as abundant melody. Reducing the orchestration is one thing, but shrinking the thrills threatens the whole.

Matters were not helped by a return for the second year running to the Bull Ring's Mayfair Suite where the acoustics remain intractable. Far too often in the first part, the orchestra, given its head by the conductor Dominic Wheeler, simply obliterated the singers. The sooner CBTO acquires a performing space of its own in Birmingham the better.

Bold decisions had been taken in the presentation of the drama. Gone were the recitatives of the revised Faust. In their place were spoken dialogue and recitation over instrumental accompaniment. But Matthew Richardson's production couldn't seem to make up its mind whether to parody the original or play it straight. The result was a limp Mephistopheles (Andrew Slater), and under-projected performances from Siebel (Katherine Steffan) and Faust (Colin McKerracher). This lack of definition in the main characters was thrown into relief by Kate McCarney's boldly drawn Martha.

Nearly everyone came into their own in the second part. Even Jon Morrell's awkward set achieved a certain atmosphere as hell began to loom. Mephistopheles became more threatening and resonant, Karl Morgan Daymond's Valentine boldly tragic and Jane Leslie MacKenzie's Marguerite blossomed magnificently despite aggravated attempts by Ian McQueen, the composer arranger, to hijack the entire show.

Not only did he see to the reduction of the orchestration, very skilfully in places, he also provided his own, newly composed piece called Frame which was musically invasive and dramatically disruptive. To quote the grisly translation used in this production, 'There's an atmosphere that I can't abide'.

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