What a difference a decade makes. Minnesota Opera’s production in 1999 of Gounod’s "Faust," on loan from the Houston Grand Opera, was so traditional that it looked like a page from the old Victor Book of the Opera: romantic postcards from a bygone era, and quite a good production for all that.

The company’s new production, unveiled Jan. 24 at the Ordway Center in St. Paul, goes in quite a different direction: a de-romanticized, frankly sexual take on the familiar story that gives us, instead of pretty postcards, the jagged outlines of World War I-era Dadaist collage, along with an especially sinister Mephistopheles — clearly the center of attention this time around — and scenes peopled with extra dancers.

One wouldn’t want to call this a dance version of "Faust," though Doug Varone, the New York choreographer who staged the production, uses the nine dancers from his regular troupe throughout the evening.

One of them is the striking Natalie Desch as the Angel in White — or Marguerite’s soul, perhaps — who writhes alone onstage during the overture, as if, like Marguerite, trying to rid herself of lustful thoughts. In a moment of pure kitsch, she flies in at the end as the Avenging Angel, sword in hand, and even the Devil cringes, as if he, too, can’t stand kitsch.

And for their part, the four male dancers accompany Faust’s every move onstage. Andrei Serban did this very thing with his "Devilettes" for his Met "Faust" a few years ago, but Varone takes the idea further. More than assistants, here they’re really emanations of the Devil’s psyche, much like the Daemons in Philip Pullman’s "His Dark Materials" novels. They do what he’s thinking, and, as such, they’re up to no good. No peasant maiden is safe from them.

The Minnesota Opera has a video/slide show about the latest production here.

Some may have found the dancers distracting, but to this taste they were continually interesting — and they’re wonderful dancers in any case. They also contributed to what Varone seems to have in mind with this production: taking evil a bit more seriously than is usually the case in an opera that is more often thought of these days as a silly story with good tunes.

This devil dominates every scene
And happily, he has at his disposal an actor-singer with the strength to embody that evil — bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen (the impressive Don Giovanni for this company in 2006). This Mephistopheles was no jaunty boulevardier with a flower in his lapel. This was a sinister force of nature, humorless, confident of his powers and unstoppable. Ketelsen dominated every scene he was in, and his singing was equally impressive — robust, incisive and rich in tone.

Though this was a strong cast, overall, no one else onstage was quite so charismatic, though in the case of Faust, so often portrayed as weak and vacillating, the fine tenor Paul Groves gave the character an appealing vigor that was almost heroic, and his singing, though a bit tight at the top, combined elegance with power.

Judith Howarth traced a convincing Marguerite as the beleaguered young woman progresses from tormented innocent to betrayal and to final salvation, and she sang throughout with lyrical poise, even delivering the needed trill in the Flower Song, which, in a nice touch, she tuned into a comic number — the young peasant girl getting giddy over all those jewels, as if she had just won a sweepstakes.

Canadian mezzo Nicole Percifield made a charming, attractively sung Siebel, and Lucas Meachem, playing Valentin, though a stiff presence onstage, displayed a fine, resonant voice. Kathleen Humphrey was the engaging Marthe, and John David Boehr brought welcome energy and adroit singing to the part of Wagner.

The look of the production, with its abstract sets designed by Andromache Chalifant (costumes by James Schuette, lights by Jane Cox), is not its strong suit. If there is a connection between this 15^th century tale, often updated to Gounod’s time, and the zeitgeist and artwork of the teen years of the 20^th century, chiefly, according to a program note, the work of the painter Kurt Schwitters, that connection was not made clear, unless it was simply that an anti-Romantic age was being sought after.

(And what was one to make of Faust’s cramped garret in the first scene, a dump that even Mimi and Rodolpho would have passed on? Apparently, there was no money in being a learned philosopher in this era.)

Varone made the most of it, nonetheless, and since he had extra dancers at his disposal, he added the usually deleted Walpugis Night ballet near the end, the witches’ orgy, which he turned into a kind of Halloween processional, and in the process reminded us why this tedious number is usually deleted.

Much credit, though, goes to conductor Jean-Yves Ossonce, who sustained momentum, clarity and expressive profile on Gounod’s perfumed score.

"Faust." 7:30 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 29); 2 p.m. Feb. 1. Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, 345 Washington St., St. Paul. ($20-$150) Call 612-333-6669 or go online.

RELATED CONTENT: Minnesota Opera’s Faust: full of dancing with the devil by Camille LeFevre, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009

Michael Anthony is a former classical music writer for the Star Tribune.