By turns ravishing & spine-tingling: period instrument orchestra Les Siècles is the star of the show in Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust at the BBC Proms conducted by Jakob Lehmann

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust – Les Siècles – BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust; John Osborn, Véronique Gens, Gerard Finley, Chœur de Radio France and Maîtrise de Radio France, Les Siècles, Jakob Lehmann; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall
Reviewed 30 August 2026

A welcome visit from Les Siècles allows us the luxury of a period instrument performance of Berlioz’s quirky masterpiece, with Jakob Lehmann and his players holding us spellbound with the orchestral detail

The French period instrument orchestra Les Siècles has gone through some significant changes in the last couple of years. Founded by François-Xavier Roth in 2003, the orchestra found itself in a similar position to the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras when their relations with their founder soured. Allegations of inappropriate behaviour on Roth’s part led to his stepping down from Les Siècles last year and the orchestra introducing a new management structure. In June this year (2026), Italian conductor Antonello Manacorda was announced as their new artistic director and conductor. Manacorda won’t be working with the orchestra again until December 2026, but in the intervening period a range of conductors have been stepping up to the podium, including Jakob Lehman who directed Beethoven and Dvorak with them last month.

Last autumn, Les Siècles and Jakob Lehmann [see my 2025 interview with him] presented Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris in a staging by Silvia Costa. Rather luxuriously, the orchestra brought the whole performance to the BBC Proms on 30 August 2026. At the Royal Albert Hall there was no staging and a new group of soloists: John Osborn as Faust, Véronique Gens as Marguerite and Gerald Finley as Méphistophélès, but we still had the Chœur de Radio France and Maîtrise de Radio France along with a very large orchestra (though ‘only’ four harps rather than the eight to ten that Berlioz asks for!)

Berlioz never did get the great Parisian theatrical success that his talent and temperament seemed to deserve, probably because Berlioz’s distinctive genius led him to run on different lines. None of his theatrical works quite fits the norm and La damnation de Faust is a case in point. Originally written as Eight Scenes from Faust in 1829, Berlioz decided to rework the material and in 1845 created his légende dramatique as he called it. Berlioz did not envisage the work being staged, it was a concert piece which of course meant that his imagination could run free. The first performance at the Opéra-Comique was not a success, and it was only following the first successful complete performance in concert in Paris, in 1877 that the work took off.

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust – John Osborn, Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles – BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

The complete work was only heard at the Proms in 1962, when Colin Davis conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. Prior to that, the work had been reduced to orchestral excerpts – the Hungarian March, the Dance of the Sylphs etc. The performance this year brings the total to eight full Proms performances (including one conducted by Mark Elder in 1985 which featured me in the chorus, and that one did have a ridiculous number of harps!).

A chance to hear La damnation de Faust on instruments of the period was not to be sniffed at, despite the Royal Albert Hall not being quite ideal. Certainly, the orchestra and choirs filled the stage and for much of the work it was the orchestral detail that held us spellbound. The noisy moments, from the Hungarian March through to the spine-tingling evocation of Hell at the end, were brilliantly done and always vivid. But Lehmann seemed to relish the ability of the orchestra to be quiet, to produce a web of sound. The Dance of the Sylphs was one such moment, where the ravishing orchestral textures made you forget that the movement feels dramatically redundant! There were strong solos too, notably the viola in ‘Autrefois, un roi de Thulé’ and the cor anglais in ‘D’amour l’ardente flamme’. In fact, there was so much orchestral detail that Lehmann and his players held you spellbound.

Dramatically, however, we were on more uneven ground and I rather regretted that we were not hearing the soloists who had put together a dramatic staging last autumn. As Faust, John Osborn sang with heroic and tireless tone, producing long, admirable lines. For the opening scenes, however, (that is until Méphistophélès first appearance), Osborn never quite managed the necessary focused intensity. Allied to Lehmann’s attention to detail this meant that the large-scale structure and philosophical underpinning of the work did not quite come over. Osborn was stronger in the more conventionally operatic scenes, and he developed a nice rapport with Gerard Finley’s Méphistophélès. In Part Three, Berlioz seems almost determined to not write a love scene, but Osborn and Véronique Gens managed to set the stage alight briefly. In Part Four, Osborn felt too careful in ‘Nature immense, impénétrable et fière’, but responded vividly to his transportation to hell. Overall, this was a slightly disappointing account of the title role, one that was musically careful and did not bring out Faust’s underlying mal d’isolement (and credit to the Proms for commissioning David Cairns’ superb article in the programme book laying out in wonderful detail the magic of this work).

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust – Gerald Finley, Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles – BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

Gerard Finley was clearly having a great time as Méphistophélès, and it is indeed a gift of a role. His theatricality was carefully modulated, we never veered towards the pantomime. But from his first entrance, Finley’s attention to text and dramaturgy kept us on our toes. Finley did his set pieces with a nice twinkle in his eye, so that ‘Song of the Flea’ was vivid, despite the song’s inconsequentiality. And his summoning of the will o’ the wisps and his serenade in Part Three were just the right side of sarcasm. In Part Four, Finley was more chilling and successfully anchored the drama. All in all, a vivid performance and one that even managed to convey across the wide open spaces of the hall.

As Marguerite, Véronique Gens was a magical piece of casting. She sang with lovely velvety tone and her flexible phrasing had a subtle rubato to it (not for nothing is Gens known for her espousal of 17th century French opera). That said, perhaps the performance was a bit too subtle for the Royal Albert Hall, and there were moments, in her second aria for instance, when I wanted a bit more edge and fire. Overall, she brought a tremulous quality to the music which highlighted Marguerite’s youthful naivety. ‘D’amour l’ardente flamme’ was subtly melancholic rather than being a romantic operatic hymn.

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust – Véronique Gens, Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles – BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

Thomas Dolié made the most of his small role as Brander, singing the song of the rat with suitable relish. The chorus was on strong form and made each of their moments into something vivid and characteristic. It was lovely hearing the French text sung with the right amount of French precision. The choral writing in the work is full of little moments and awkward details, all of which were brought off with elan with the singers making themselves part of the ensemble. The men in the scene in Hell were suitably strong, whilst the children added an aetherial element to the final scene (complete with the magical sound of the four Erard period harps).

Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust – Jakob Lehmann, Les Siècles – BBC Proms (Photo: BBC/Mark Allan)

The performance is on BBC Sounds for 42 days.