La damnation de Faust

"Roth gave us a marvellous Berlioz coupling at the beginning of the year in which he combined Harold en Italie and Les Nuits d'été. Now, however, I fancy that Roth may have trumped all those achievements with this DVD version of La damnation de Faust ... The Chœur Marguerite Louise makes a fine showing ... Berlioz's richly varied and inventive scoring is meat and drink to the musicians of Les Siècles. The playing of the entire orchestra is superb throughout ... Over it all presides François-Xavier Roth who conducts perceptively and with dramatic flair ... The visual aspect of the production is excellent ... The deeper I go into La damnation de Faust the more convinced I become that it is one of Berlioz's greatest works. Here we have it in a performance that is worthy of Berlioz's genius in every way. I believe it's a mandatory purchase for all devotees of the French master. Vraiment magnifique!".

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"This concert performance from Versailles' Opéra Royal last November is a curio - almost perfection sits alongside over-cleanness and lack of drama, an almost Karajan-like tidying-up of corners ... The singing itself could hardly be bettered ... The choir may be a century beyond their habitual repertoire but their enunciation and use of text are superb without over-acting ... Among the soloists, Anna Caterina Antonacci works with Roth to achieve a reading of Marguerite's scenes ... It's hard to imagine the part of Faust's rejected love better achieved as drama through singing ... The story's very clear and undecorated but we're rarely gripped by it - by the beautiful singing, yes, but not the drama".