The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, New York

High-tech circus meets grand opera. That's a quick way to sum up the Metropolitan Opera's production of Hector Berlioz's masterpiece, "La Damnation de Faust," which opened Friday at Lincoln Centre.

It took computers and motion-sensitive cameras to create the pulsating water, fire, sky and grass that are the cinematic backdrop for the drama. Even digitally generated birds cross the heavens in response to the tenor's fluctuating voice, triggered by a transmitter attached to the singer.

The spectacle was directed by Robert Lepage, creator of a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, who brought both art and athleticism to the Met stage with what he calls his high-tech "toys" - the latest in motion and sound technology.

The production features an all-star cast: tenor Marcello Giordani in the title role of the lonely, aging scholar Faust; mezzo-soprano Susan Graham as Marguerite, the object of the fleeting sexual ecstasy that destroys him; and bass-baritone John Relyea as Mephistopheles, who has a devil of a good time engineering the debacle. Based on Goethe's "Faust," the Berlioz work was premiered in Paris in 1846 and first staged by the Met in 1906 - and never again till now. The composer called it a "legende dramatique." It was, indeed, a dramatic evening - a lavishly modern, multimillion-dollar production wrapped around a taut, technically polished reading of the score. As Marguerite, Graham has the ideal voice for Berlioz - a mezzo with a dark richness that blossoms into lush soprano-like tones - and she's a perfect instrument for the devil's seduction of Faust's pure soul. James Levine conducted with ease and brilliance, though he could have led the orchestra with greater ferocity in certain climactic moments. The horns and winds were powerful and precise, and the strings exuded a velvety sheen, switching to Berlioz's sardonic passages with bite and grit.