Faust

About

This Mariinsky Theatre production of Gounod’s Faust, directed and designed by Isabella Bywater, premiered on 26 April 2013. The staging relocates the drama to the early 20th century, with characters moving among tombstones inscribed with their own names from different eras, underscoring the story’s timelessness. Bywater’s concept treats Méphistophélès as the dark side of Faust himself, emphasizing that human beings fashion their own evil and must answer for it. A spare, grey visual palette highlights the banality of sin while creating a stark counterpoint to Gounod’s lyrical score. The production reframes the Faust–Marguerite relationship with modern psychological acuity, casting Marguerite as a vulnerable teenager and reimagining Siébel as a young woman who alone empathizes with her. Across the evening, the focus is on the inner conflict of a religious man choosing what he knows to be wrong, and on the uneasy proximity of the divine and the demonic.