Sammy Van den Heuvel — scenography            

Each space grows within a specific frame that is shaped through dialogue; with the director, with the choreographer, with the text, the music, the materials, with the dramaturg, with the production team, with the artists and builders in the workshops, with the stage technicians. Ultimately, the built space engages in a dialogue with the performers, and, through them, in a conversation with the audience.

/Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and Philippe Herreweghe/Collegium Vocale 2022
Faust is a disillusioned scholar, fruitlessly searching for the deepest truth. In exchange for his soul, the devil promises him a life of pleasure, culminating in one moment of perfect happiness. What follows is a rollercoaster of striving, falling, and picking himself up again, driven by a desire for love and a relentless drive for progress.

In the moment of his death he outwits the devil, is forgiven and allowed to enter heaven. It is the ambiguity of striving that saves Faust. For despite negative consequences, ever striving also connects us in the search for meaning in life. Judging someone else for their desires is hypocritical, because in reality we all cherish our desires. We are all Faust.

Composer Robert Schumann leafed through Goethe's masterpiece and captured its essence in seven iconic scenes, oscillating between opera and oratorio. Under an overwhelming video screen, the seemingly endless stage is populated by a community of singers: soloists, Collegium Vocale Gent and the Choir and Children's Choir of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.

musical direction Philippe Herreweeghe / direction and video design Julian Rosefeldt / choreography Femke Gyselinck / dramaturgy Katherina Lindekens, Tobias Staab / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Birgitt Killian / light design Matthias Singer