Music for the Faust drama? Goethe always proposed Mozart, albeit posthumously, but Schumann – despite nerves about composing music for what be called ‘one of the seminal and most widely acclaimed works in German literature’ – put himself up there alongside other front runners Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner. Like them he intended to concentrate on individual scenes and themes, avoiding the whole work and (like Berlioz) hinting at, rather than actually calling for, a dramatic staging.

Over almost a decade Schumann compiled his ‘oratorio’ (his description) in three parts, the end of the play first, the Overture last – intriguingly much like Wagner’s parallel and almost contemporary method with the Ring cycle. For more details see Gramophone’s reviews of previous major recordings: the epoch-making first (led and organised by Benjamin Britten – Decca, 12/73), then Klee and Abbado (respectively EMI/Warner and Sony, 5/95), and Harding (BR Klassik, 12/14). The present new issue is different in presenting the work – at a gala to mark the reopening of the Berlin Staatsoper in October 2017 – as a stage production which interpolates (extra) spoken drama from Goethe’s play in between each of the nine main scenes Schumann set to music.

The immediate problem here is that, as with many of today’s interventions into 19th-century music drama (cf Fidelio, Der Freischütz), the composer’s sense and choice of timing are completely thrown out. It becomes a rewrite rather than an interpretation. Schumann’s selection of Faust scenes is challengingly wide – no reduction to a Gounod number opera here, more a philosophical collection which, seducing Gretchen in Part 1 aside, concentrates on Faust’s soul, his blinding, death and salvation.

A hard job for stage director Jürgen Flimm, whose dressed-up 19th-century Grand Opera style of ‘if the text mentions it, show it’ suits Part 1 best. But the production loses out later when the attempt to costume Goethe’s spirit and less realistic characters like the ‘Lemurs’ steers dangerously close to pantomime. And the introduction of modern clothes in Part 3 looks just lazily trendy: why are there emergency workers dressed as they are now in this Paradise?

OK, there is certainly some dramatic tension – and relevance to the play – in playing the two Fausts (actor/singer) at differing young/old ages and placing them on stage together most of the time. Yet the Mephistopheles and Gretchen actor doubles (the latter, Meike Droste, outstanding) are often reduced to merely decorating the space. And a bit too much obscure use is made of the stage within the stage, its artificial painted wallpaper hangings in Part 2 (sculptor Markus Lüpertz is the set designer) and the carried-on rows of old theatre seating. In all this mesh of detail and movement the chorus – great singing, especially from the children – does little apart from process on and stand and deliver. A good focus for Schumann’s sometimes intentionally naive but concentration-demanding part-writing, less for drama.

Musically there is much well-rounded singing from the main trio of Dreisig, Pape and Trekel, even though their impact on the show is undoubtedly lessened by the presence and work of the actors. Barenboim and his orchestra bring predictable bite and colour to the proceedings, although I wish they’d been balanced symphonically a bit more forwards. They need that to carry us through spoken passages which, placed in a context they were never meant for, can drag. For Schumann’s own cunning pacing of the piece see especially the ‘work-as-writ’ music-only versions of Harding or the slower but loving and so carefully achieved detail of Britten. It’s hard to recommend this DVD as a fulfilling performance event in itself but it does indeed serve as a useful information-gatherer on both the play and Schumann’s challenging approach to it.