Tomorrow's more formal, concert-style Berlioz reminds Owens of a similar treatment of Strauss' Elektra at the Verbier Festival last month, in which he played the role of Oreste.
"Having already been in a fully staged Elektra, it was amazing how much orchestral detail I was able to hear, particularly from the woodwind," he says.
In some cases, Owens feels there can be distinct advantages in sharing the stage with the orchestra.
"There's none of the distance and time delay that you get with an orchestra in the pit. After all, that proscenium arch is nothing but a big ol' doorway, with the orchestra out there and down below with a wall behind them that's blocking a lot of sound from us. The players are in another room, basically. In a concert version, we can sit back and just ride the crest of this sound, as long as we have a sensitive conductor who's not going to derail us."
Clearly there's no danger of this with Edo de Waart at the helm and Owens is enjoying finally being able to work alongside the NZSO's musical director. "Until now, the calendar has never smiled at us."
De Waart would seem to be Owens' ideal, someone who breathes in sympathy with the musicians he's conducting.
"That collective breathing is what I look for, whether it's with singers or a whole orchestra," Owens explains. "When a conductor can get this happening, you have real magic."
There should be magic aplenty in Berlioz's "dramatic legend", which features, along with four soloists playing out the classic Goethe story, an orchestra of 93 players and a chorus of 70, supplied by New Zealand Opera.
"Berlioz may be a bit of an acquired taste but there's something marvellously kooky about this work," Owens says. "Like Beethoven, he was a composer very much ahead of his time and there are things in this Faust that would seem modern today, let alone back in 1846."
Lowdown
What: NZSO concert opera, The Damnation of Faust
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow at 2.30pm.
