Opera Australia wraps up 2019 in grand style with Charles Gounod’s grand opera, so rarely seen in Australia lately. It’s sung by a uniformly excellent cast, including two outstanding imports and local favourite Teddy Tahu Rhodes in devilishly good form, and Sir David McVicar’s lavish, ostensibly traditional production is packed with provocative surprises.

Maria Mudryak and Saimir Pirgu in Opera Australia’s Faust. Photo © Jeff Busby

Premiering in Paris in 1859, Faust tells the centuries-old tale, told by Goethe among others, of the eponymous man who makes a pact with Satan for a chance at youthful hedonism. In Gounod’s opera, Faust falls in love with Marguerite. As her brother, Valentin, goes to war and her young admirer, Siébel, looks on despairingly, this innocent woman is seduced, impregnated and abandoned by Faust, aided by the devil incarnate, Méphistophélès. As Marguerite faces execution for infanticide, her soul becomes the battleground between good and evil, but the remorseful Faust’s fate is sealed.

Other than excessive cane-wobbling as the elderly Faust, Albanian Saimir Pirgu is all that one could wish for in the title role. By turns eager, charming and remorseful, his character’s evolving feelings are clear both...