Berlioz: La damnation de Faust

I'll get the cavills out of the way first.
A rather dry acoustic (the Barbican) and a choir that, perhaps unsurprisingly, begin to sound a little tired towards the end. I find Sabbatini a little over-strenuous and melodramatic (but then this is a melodrama).
However, the balance is firmly tipped in favour of this issue by Sir Colin Davis' absolutely faultless pacing. He leads an electrifying LSO that is precise and punchy in the dramatic music and full of beautiful touches in the many chamber-like quieter passages. The cast are universally fine and the LSO chorus sing their socks off (with the above reservations). The price is unbelievable. £8.99 for a superb performance of one of Berlioz' most original and engaging works, you would be mad not to buy it!

Despite several rave reviews, I am with the Santa Fe listener on this one: it is a lacklustre affair in recessed sound, lacking the drive and fire both Pretre and Solti (especially, in his fabulous 1981 set) bring to this mercurial piece. Indeed, Davis' own earlier version is far preferable. The choir is ragged and quite often strained, Skhosa's odd vibrato makes her sound permanently flat and her French is poor, Davis' tempi are limp - absurdly so at the start of the "D'amour l'ardente flamme" - and everyone, apart from Sabbatini, is ordinary. Just compare Skhosa's run-through of Marguerite compared with Janet Baker's deeply felt and sublimely sung rendition in the old (1969) version, or Pertusi's perfectly adequate assumption of Méphistophélès compared with Van Dam's spine-chilling suavity on the Solti. Sabbatini is the honourable exception; his French is good and he brings real passion - including a ringing C sharp - to his Faust, bringing him into the same league as Gedda and Keith Lewis on the Inbal set. (Riegel is the comparative weakness on the Solti, but he is more than adequate.) Turning up the volume to compensate for the low recorded dynamic only serves to emphasise the inadequacies of this performance.

I am afraid that I find many of these Davis/LSO live peformances to be over-rated and disappointing; I include the Falstaff (also with Pertusi) and the Berlioz "Romeo et Juliette". I have bought them after reading rave reviews and as they are so cheap, played them and given them away. I suggest yout turn to the Solti, Markevitch or the Pretre (see my reviews for all three) if you want to hear this piece done properly; the newer Chung sports the advantages of Terfel as the demon and Keith Lewis' Faust, but the latter is no longer as sweet and sappy as he was for Inbal and the rest of the cast, including Von Otter's bland, characterless Marguerite and Victor Van Halem's past-it Brander, cannot measure up.

Colin Davis has changed his interpretation of this piece
surprisingly little since I heard him do it at Cambridge with Chelsea
Opera Group in about 1961. Tempi are very similar although some of the attacks are not as crisp now.

There are two quibles with this recording:-
(1) The level is very low. This doesn't matter on good equipment,
but you will have to turn the volume above your normal setting.
(2) Sir Colin has now joined Glen Gould and Alfred Brendel in moaning
distractingly throughout most of his performances. This really
is very offputting, especially in the quiet bits. The moaning was
not apparent in the Barbican at the time.

Despite these problems the performance is still quite thrilling with
the final Ride to the Abyss probably the best on record anywhere.