Customer Reviews

Faust: Gounod

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As a curio representing the "early electric" era of complete opera recordings of the late 1920's-early 1930's, this might merit some tepid interest. Otherwise, it is an abysmal rendering of a sentimental but beautiful old opera. How Sir Thomas Beecham was snared into conducting this silly relic in 1929 is incomprehensible. The singing is worse than mediocre; it resembles a parody of the type of operatic scenes depicted in early talkie movie musicals circa 1930. Robert Easton has got to be the most dreadful devil ever recorded, more or less talking his way in a flat drone through the part rather than really singing. The less said about the other two leads, Heddle Nash and Miriam Licette, the better. Beecham was much better served to conduct an authentic Faust, in French, with Geori Boue & cast in 1947. If you want a 1930 Faust - and there is an excellent one - get the French conducted by Henri Busser, and/or Beecham's later, postwar version.

Well, sometimes even the greatest conductors boot one.

This is an old, old recording of Gounod's "Faust." It has been said that all that is required to make "Faust" a great opera is a quartet of the four finest singers in the world. Evidently, they were out of town when this recording was made.

Probably the best known among the performers is the tenor, Heddle Nash. As tenors go, he was VERY English. In lighter material, even in Mozart, he wasn't bad, but he is hopeless as Faust. Listen to the sample of his big aria, here disguised as "All hail, thou dwelling pure and lowly" (not "All hail thy dwellings," as shown above.) Go ahead, I'll wait. . . Painful, isn't it?

As for the other singers, sadly, they are all cursed by English vocal training.

The English singing translation used in this performance provides one of the strongest arguments ever made against translating any opera.

Since the set offers a few wry laughs, I give it two stars. Put it on the shelf next to your Florence Foster Jenkins collection.