Hong Kong's opera lovers, lacking a full-time opera house and gaining a standing company only in the past year, have long rallied around their annual civic productions, where disparate local organisations and a few artists of international standing come together under the umbrella of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department.

This ad-hoc arrangement naturally leads to productions that are high on spectacle and rather less consistent in musicality, and on this count the current production of Gounod's Faust at the Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre runs true to form.

First, the high points. Rarely does Gounod's music encounter such a well-matched Faust and Marguerite as the Chinese-born tenor Jianyi Zhang and the New Zealand-born soprano Deborah Wai Kapohe.

Zhang's subtle command of the role bloomed gradually until, much like his character, he had the entire proceeding at his fingertips by the middle of the evening. Kapohe's vocalism aimed less high dramatically but immediately enveloped her surroundings like smooth silk.

It was with Korean bass Hye-soo Sonn's Mephistopheles, however, that the eye and the ear first parted company. The long-haired, red-caped Sonn certainly looked the part. Vocally, however, his demonic man-about-town was not nearly so imposing, his voice barely audible in the lower register. In spite of his attempts at radiating supreme confidence, Sonn struggled with certain notes so much that it made you want to reach in and pull them out.

From the pit, conductor David Stern wielded the Hong Kong Sinfonietta with a fine lyricism that unfortunately eschewed any sense of dramatic immediacy.

Likewise, the Opera Society Chorus of Hong Kong sang rather more as if they were in a church service than a stage production, an approach not entirely inappropriate, given the show's spiritual undertones and the occasional appearance of a strolling bishop, but certainly one that forfeited several of the story's dimensions.

With the music itself always striving for beauty at the expense of theatrical tension, producer/director Lo King-man was clearly playing with a stackeddeck. It's hard to take evil very seriously when it never has a chance in the first place.

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