Opera - Peter Conrad is sobered by a rethinking of Faust that is far from heaven

Faust remains the most irrepressible of mythic heroes because we live in a Faustian culture. The man who sells his soul to the devil represents the best and the worst of us: in theory, an aspiring over-achiever; in fact, more often a mercenary go-getter. Mahler's Eighth Symphony redeems the spiritual truant in its setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust, recruiting a cosmic chorus to usher him into heaven. In Gounod's Faust, he remains a hedonist, interested only in perpetual youth and a supply of young mistresses. Mahler's heroine, variously embodied by five female singers, is Goethe's eternal woman, the saviour who leads man aloft. But Gounod's Marguerite shares Faust's profane dreams. She sacrifices her virtue in exchange for a casket of jewels, which prompt her to rhapsodies of spangled, tinselly coloratura.

First performed in 1859, Gounod's Faust became the most popular opera of the late 19th century because its mixture of religiosity and seduction, greed and military patriotism, summed up the meretricious values of its time. David McVicar's brilliant new production at Covent Garden opens into a damning panorama of the society that took such delight in these infernal revels. Charles Edwards's set is flanked by a gloomy, sanctimonious organ loft from the Eglise de St Severin and a gilded opera box from the Palais Garnier; between them is the squalid labyrinth of Paris before it was Haussmannised, with Marguerite's poky garret and an impromptu open-air hospital for casualties evacuated from the Franco-Prussian war.

Faust here is Gounod himself, described by Turgenev as an erotic priest who oozed both piety and lubricity. His tempter, Mephistopheles, fulfils Faust's thwarted wishes by raiding a backstage prop basket, in which he even finds a satanic crimson pitchfork. The devil offers a laurel wreath, a crown and handfuls of banknotes, but Faust spurns power and riches; he requires Mephistopheles to serve as an impresario, staging theatrical orgies. The first of these lurid carnivals is a raunchy cancan at the Cabaret de l'Enfer, a sensual lair where the supposedly innocent Marguerite works as an usherette. Later - because Gounod was obliged, like all Parisian composers, to insert a ballet into his opera for the benefit of male voyeurs - comes what can only be called a Giselle from hell, with maenads in tutus shrieking curses at a heavily pregnant Marguerite and sinking vampirish fangs into her prim, bourgeois brother.

In such a setting, McVicar's volatile stars can misbehave with impunity, as this is an opera about uncontrollable egos and rebellious ids. As Faust, Roberto Alagna celebrates his magical rejuvenation by doing a somersault and hopping on to the prompter's box to fire off some jubilantly showy high notes. He serenades Marguerite in a tux and topper, brandishing a cane like a lewd boulevardier out slumming. Angela Gheorghiu claws through the jewel casket with authentic rapacity, but also - after Marguerite's abandon-ment - touchingly conveys the character's distress and derangement. Guided by McVicar, she saves the final scene from sentimentality: the mad Marguerite is as limp as a rag doll, unable to pardon Faust or to save her own soul.

It's a pity about Bryn Terfel, whose performance as Mephistopheles is diabolical in quite the wrong sense. He barks the demon's suave insinuations as gruffly as if he were playing Cerberus, though at least he is game enough to wear drag when taking part in the balletic parade of history's most celebrated harlots. Bulkily swathed in a sequinned ball gown, with a tiara atop his granitic head, he looks like a transvestite bricklayer who hasn't quite reconciled his flounces with his five-o'clock shadow. Can this be the director's revenge on Terfel's gruff, strutting machismo? Antonio Pappano, conducting, displays qualities for which the only terms of praise are gallic: finesse in the sensuous reveries, panache in the tub-thumping choruses.

In Birmingham earlier this month, Simon Rattle - with an EMI recording team in attendance - performed the symphony in which Mahler describes the levitation of Faust's soul, drawn into the upper air by the mystic force of love. Four choruses, one flown in from Toronto, represented the mass of uprisen humanity; eight vocal soloists presided over the hero's beatification, with Juliane Banse as Mater Gloriosa beckoning him to higher spheres from a dizzy perch above Symphony Hall's organ loft. With everyone in full cry, frenetically rallied by Rattle and supported by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, it sounded as if the entire universe had erupted into song. Was the music of the spheres really so noisy, and so indomitably optimistic?

The symphony is uproarious and exultant, but perhaps the opera - at least in McVicar's rethinking of it - contains a more sobering truth. In the last few minutes, Faust's magic powers are revoked. He dwindles into decrepitude again, deserted by both his evil pander and by the angelic woman who ought to have sacrificed herself for him. The world ends not with Mahler's gleeful collective outcry, but with Gounod's sad and solitary whimpering. Mahler thought that the figure of Faust embodied humankind's creative genius; McVicar shows him to be a false prophet, making propaganda for a corrupt, destructive but enjoyably tawdry gospel.

Faust is at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London WC2 (020 7304 4000) until 2 July

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