In his role debut as Boito’s Faust, Ramón Vargas portrayed his character’s post-bargain adventures with an adolescent’s wide-eyed gusto.

Here, San Francisco Opera complemented the excellent Abdrazkov’s with two veteran artists and a top-notch chorus that made as strong a case for the opera as could be hoped for. To elevate the opera’s wordy libretto and occasionally awkward dramaturgy, a charismatic and capable Mefistofele is an absolute necessity.

More baritone than bass, Abdrazakov’s voice is an impressive instrument: gorgeous in the middle and upper reaches while remaining steady and responsive no matter how much he moved about in this physical workout of a portrayal. Though he may not possess Ramey’s clear, booming low notes or that artist’s same satanic savoir-faire in the title role, Abdrazakov’s portrayal was confident and authoritative, more than justifying the dusting off of Boito’s score and Carsen’s show for an auspicious role debut. The singer at the center of these plans is Russian bass-baritone Ildar Abdrazakov. When the San Francisco Opera and Metropolitan Opera joined forces to re-purchase the production in 2012, it was with hopes that a new performer could step into Ramey’s shoes and capture some of the magic that first excited crowds 25 years ago. Its triumph as seemingly the only vision for Boito’s sole contribution to the operatic repertory (the composer’s final and unfinished opera Nerone is almost never produced), is historically tied to another one-of-a-kind property: bass Samuel Ramey. Beginning in 1988 as a co-production between San Francisco and Geneva, Carsen’s setting with designs by Michael Levine was mounted in Chicago (1991), Houston (1996) and New York (1999), before being sold to Turin’s Teatro Regio in 1997. Last viewed on the San Francisco Opera stage in 1994, this production has long since achieved classic status through its stops around the United States, abroad, and on DVD. Heard in the second performance (11 September), the singing voices of three superb artists and 90-plus men, women, angels and demons enlivened Carsen’s over-the-top trappings with moments of lyric beauty and drama. The staging extends Shakespeare’s metaphor: if the whole world’s a stage, then heaven, quite naturally, must be an opera house. The 91st season of the San Francisco Opera opened with a revival of Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele in Robert Carsen’s well-traveled production.

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