Eternally popular opera Faust's secret- striking a balance of moods

Charles Gounod's five-act opera Faust has defied gravity for so long that if you don't already know the work, it's well worth the outlay to find out why.

Courtesy of Le French May, the opportunity to do so is just around the corner: Opera Hong Kong (OHK) is presenting the work in a co-production by Opéra Nice Côte d'Azur, Opéra Grand Avignon and Opéra Théâtre de Saint-Étienne this coming weekend at the Cultural Centre. Director Paul-Emile Fourny oversees an international cast of soloists and the OHK Chorus, with Benjamin Pionnier and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta in the pit.

Because of the equivocal nature of its musical style and dramatic identity, many observers over the years have expected Faust to gradually bomb. The work remains as buoyant as ever, however, more than 150 years after its premiere in Paris in 1859.

For many, the name Faust is synonymous with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's two-part tragic play, which first recounts how the title character sells his soul to the devil to regain his youthful appeal for the alluring Marguerite, before moving on to some serious observations on the human condition.

Gounod's opera doesn't tread so heavily. Based on a libretto drawn from Michel Carré's loosely related play Faust et Marguerite, it gives us an easier intellectual entrée to the ups and downs of dabbling with demons. And much of the music is effortlessly lyrical with a good serving of toe-tapping show stoppers to get the stalls humming.

Consequently, the director's role is crucial in marrying these two disparate elements of a serious core and a sugared coating. Scottish director David McVicar's 2004 version is still wowing audiences, most recently at London's Covent Garden, in which Gothic arches were offset by an appearance of the redoubtable Bryn Terfel as the devilish Méphistophélès wearing a tiara and a black sequinned frock for the Walpurgis Night ball scene.