The Damnation of Faust, English National Opera, London Coliseum, 6 May 2011

On Thursday night there had been a buzz at Covent Garden about Rolando Villazon. On Friday night there was a buzz at the Coliseum about Terry Gilliam’s debut as an opera director.

Judging by a body of work that includes Monty Python, Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam’s talent needs an epic canvas, something large scale, examining the individual in the context of their world rather the intimacy of human relations. So Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust (based on Goethe) is a good choice for his first opera production. But it is essentially a concert work, with long sections of orchestral music in which nothing happens. It is a director’s piece, needing a strong concept to hold it all together. So what would his concept be?

Controversial. Gilliam takes Faust as an analogue for the German people, and Faust's journey is their path from Romanticism through cynicism to Fascism.

Faust/Germany is Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer, standing on his rock and bemoaning the vapidity of life. Mephistopheles tries to win him by showing him the delights of the ‘Back to Nature’ movement. But Faust is disillusioned and he returns to the rock to watch the rise of Prussian militarism and descent into World War I, played out to the Hungarian March. The tavern scene takes place in the Weimar period, the design reflecting the Expressionist works of Otto Dix and George Grosz. Brander is a Nazi brownshirt, tormenting Jews and communists. As the Nazis come to power, the Wanderer’s rock becomes the balcony at Berchtesgaden; Faust becomes enmeshed in Nazi society, and during a presentation of Die Walküre is given a vision of Marguerite. The first half finishes with images from Riefenstahl’s Olympia and Triumph of the Will as this new path seems to bear fruit.

But Marguerite is Jewish. Faust seduces her (to the background of Kristallnacht), but this does not save her from transportation. Faust agrees to sell his soul to Mephistopheles if Marguerite is saved. Mephistopheles takes Faust to hell on his motorbike, and a gentle snow falls on a tangled pile of corpses in a concentration camp, as the angels sing Marguerite’s soul into heaven.

So was this ‘Naughty Nazis’? Did Gilliam take inspiration from ‘The Producers’ and deliberately try to make the production a flop? No. Because for the only time I can remember, the Nazi analogy actually worked! It is a very deeply thought-out concept that works consistently through the whole piece. I was impressed how the ideas Gilliam used reflected Berlioz's text while maintaining historical chronology - it's as if Goethe had foreseen how things would go.

Peter Hoare sang Faust with a beautiful dramatic tenor voice and a red Eraserhead hairdo, Christopher Purves was a lyrical and nasty Mephistopheles, and Christine Rice was a bewildered but beautiful Marguerite. The cast and production team, including Terry Gilliam in a huge woollen cardigan, received huge cheers, and when the curtain calls were ended prematurely by the house lights the audience expressed their disapproval.

Two Goethe operas in a row, and both absolute crackers.