Met’s family-friendly “Magic Flute” only gets better with age
Nathan Gunn and Erin Morley in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at the Metropolitan Opera. Photo: Richard Termine
Julie Taymor’s production of Die Zauberflöte only gets better with age and familiarity. For this holiday season, the Metropolitan Opera is putting on the abridged, English-language version (called The Magic Flute to differentiate). Wednesday night’s opening performance was a reminder of how fine this 90-minute version is–in some key ways even better than the full version–and just as true to the origin and spirit of Mozart’s opera.
Perhaps it is better to not call The Mage Flute an opera, because it’s not; technically, the spoken dialogue that moves the story along makes this a singspiel, which in the 18th century would be called a “song-play” and today is called a musical. It was also never an opera in the cultural and social sense, it was made specifically for the Freihaus-Theater auf der Weiden, outside the main part of Vienna, a place that presented musical (but non-operatic) work to a broad audience—aristocrats may have shown up, but they weren’t the intended audience.
The abridgement puts the theatrical emphasis on Papageno—baritone Nathan Gunn, who is so experienced in the role it seems an alter-ego—and the Queen of the Night (soprano Kathryn Lewek), and this adds a theatrical feeling that goes beyond the magical puppetry and beautiful, symbolic costumes.
Papageno was created for, and with, Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist and an actor, singer, and impresario. Schikaneder was a skilled comic performer but not an opera singer, and so Papageno’s music lies within a tight frame of range and phrasing, atypical of Mozart’s vocal writing. The same is true for Papageno’s comic mirror image, Monastatos (tenor Brenton Ryan, his light voice encased within the character’s exaggerated kabuki mask and body suit).
This was a true collaboration, Mozart working with the individual performers, who at the 1791 premiere included Josepha Hofer, his sister-in-law, as the Queen of the Night. She was evidently an absolute virtuoso, and this is one of the most specialized roles in the repertoire, demanding exceptional range, precision, and power.
Lewek has to be the finest contemporary Queen of the Night, bar none. Her two main appearances were spectacular—along with the chops, she brings a fierceness and vocal excitement to the role, a great balance of camp and seriousness. This shorter version means the Queen’s appearances have larger proportions, and with her giant, dazzling wings, Lewek counterbalanced the comedy with darkness.
The Magic Flute is a fairy tale about magic and reason, embodied in Papageno and the Queen. The abridgment makes the two ostensibly lead characters, Prince Tamino and his beloved Pamina, into supporting roles, which makes perfect sense—they are at the center of the story but not of the action. Ben Bliss, who is becoming a leading Mozart tenor, and soprano Erin Morley, sang the roles, and they were sweet, lovely, and graceful, making the most out of parts that are fundamentally one-dimensional.
Morris Robinson brought his enormous bass to Sarastro. Robinson made it all the way down to the role’s subterranean notes while still projecting, and sang with an elegant sense of pace and articulation.
Conductor Harry Bicket, best known for his leadership of the English Concert, was in the pit. With him the MET orchestra had a warm, grainy sound, especially in the woodwind choirs, that had some of the sepia patina of early music ensembles. The overall pace was fine, with some of the coordination between singers and orchestra going in and out. There were a couple moments when Bicket and a singer played chicken with the end of a phrase, but nothing that diminished the overall pleasure.
The abridged production is meant for families and, even without intermission, doesn’t tax a child’s endurance. J.D. McClatchy’s translation is true to that spirit and puts the libretto into vernacular English—one doesn’t really need the subtitles.
This was, and is a vernacular piece, in linguistic and cultural terms, and it should be translated into the primary language where ever it’s performed, because it’s supposed to speak directly to the audience. Mozart could not possibly have conceived of a house that fit 4,000 people, like the Met. Non-musical notions of what opera is supposed to be too often obscure and obstruct what opera is and should be, which in the case of The Magic Flute, and this production, is nothing but fun.
The Magic Flute continues through January 5, 2019. metopera.org; 212-362-2000.
Amadeus Ex Machina
Chagall and Hockney have already had their way with Mozart’s Magic Flute. Now—cue the kite puppets —it’s Julie Taymor’s turn.
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Mozart’s music may not always take second place when the Metropolitan Opera stages The Magic Flute, but—at least as long as I’ve been around—the productions have been mostly defined by their sets and costumes. And, true to form, the big buzz over the latest Flute centers on Julie Taymor, Tony-winning director of The Lion King, and her take on this immortal operatic fantasy. No wonder, since her Asian-influenced sense of theater, with its kite puppets, animal imagery, and masks, together with set designer George Tsypin’s translucent geometric shapes and sculptures, give the eyes plenty to take in. To judge from the roars of approval on opening night, audiences will be finding new visual marvels to savor in this production for many years to come.
Yes, Taymor’s stage is a very busy one, but not so frantic as to obscure what is at heart a fairly traditional approach to the dramatic action. Sarastro and the Queen of the Night, their mythical realms located somewhere between the sun and the moon, are clearly depicted in a pitched battle between good and evil; the young lovers Tamino and Pamina are tested, grow, and become wise through their adventures; everyday folk like Papageno and Papagena remain endearingly unaware of life’s mysteries as they eat, drink, and make babies; and illusion is omnipresent as the characters wander through a world where humans of all ethnicities mix in surroundings that remain in a constant state of magical mutability. The stage pictures are dazzling, but the real wonder of Taymor’s production is how precisely movement is counterpointed with music to reflect the enormous emotional range of Mozart’s score, from slapstick comedy to solemn spirituality.
“This Magic Flute is likely to be remembered more for the way it looks than how it sounds.”
Taymor’s enchanted vision follows in step with past Met Magic Flutes, a tradition well worth recalling. The previous production was David Hockney’s 1990 version (originally designed for Glyndebourne in 1978), brushed all over with his typical crayon-box playfulness: painted drops filled with bold, colorful drawings of pyramids, obelisks, palm trees, desert expanses, stone heads, massive staircases, and trompe l’oeil temple interiors. Before that came the fondly remembered Marc Chagall production of 1967, another painterly approach full of that great master’s whimsical flying animals and fanciful human beings—one can only hope that this stunning work of art has been safely stored away somewhere for future reference. And those whose memories travel back even further will remember the Flute the Met commissioned for Mozart’s 1956 bicentennial, when general manager Rudolph Bing was startling audiences by importing famous names from Broadway and Hollywood to revolutionize the company’s production styles—which is exactly what the noted film designer Harry Horner accomplished in a production featuring freestanding three-dimensional sets and photographic projections that seemed, at the time, like the last word in modernistic stagecraft.
The current Met production, like its predecessors, is likely to be remembered more fondly for the way it looks than how it sounds. James Levine, always at his best in Mozart, gives a lithe, gleaming account of the score, but the singing leaves a lot to be desired. L’ubica Vargicová delivers the Queen of the Night’s scintillant coloratura flights gingerly and with scarcely a suggestion of the threat that motivates them, while Kwangchul Youn’s bass lacks the vocal weight, even legato, and solid low notes to give Sarastro’s solemn pronouncements authority. Also disappointing are Rodion Pogossov’s Papageno (a beaklike lid on his turned-around baseball hat is the most amusing thing about this pedestrian bird catcher) and Julien Robbins’s pallid Speaker. Dorothea Röschmann, on the other hand, is an exquisitely expressive Pamina, and Matthew Polenzani puts his bright lyric tenor to the best uses as Tamino, presented here as a dashing young samurai warrior. As soon as a stronger cast can join these two fine vocal talents, the Met’s new Magic Flute will be a show to hear as well as to see.
