Campy, playful and funny: Opera Australia finds the joy in The Magic Flute, Mozart’s most-performed opera
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Monday, February 5, 2024
The sheer familiarity of The Magic Flute, Mozart’s most-performed opera, can blind one to its inherent oddness.
Key Points:
- The sheer familiarity of The Magic Flute, Mozart’s most-performed opera, can blind one to its inherent oddness.
- Librettist Emanuel Schikaneder has created something that is part allegory, part dream and part fairy tale.
Embracing silliness
- In the recording I first got to know, Klemperer’s legendary version from 1964, only the sung portions were included.
- A new production by Kate Gaul for Opera Australia does not shy away from pantomime silliness from the start.
- The translation by Gaul and Michael Gow has some chortle-worthy lines.
- “Am I hard of hearing, or is no one volunteering?” sings Papageno as he vainly seeks a woman – any woman – to satisfy his romantic urges.
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Barrie Kosky's The Magic Flute is a contemporary spectacle, despite the opera's outdated attitudes
Campy costumes and an ornamental set
- It is a relief to hear it in full in this production, directed with sureness of touch by Teresa Riveiro Böhm.
- The orchestra provides a fulsome sound and crisp articulation over the evening, with just a handful of uncoordinated moments between the pit and stage.
- Weirdly, Tamino held his on-stage flute up in the air instead of miming, creating an odd disconnect between sight and sound.
- Outdoing even this for connoisseurs of camp is the late appearance of Papagena (Jennifer Black) in a Brazilian-carnival-style bird costume.
- Michael Yeargan’s set has a three-sided exterior surrounding grass, with ornamental entrances on each side.
Spell-casting performances
- But for me, the standout voice belongs to Alleaume, who brings a burnished legato to Pamina’s arias, but also playfulness in the ensembles.
- Smallwood has a pleasing light lyrical tenor as Tamino – less forceful than some exponents of the role, but tuneful and exemplary in his diction.
- Breen brings his trademark comic gifts to Monostatos who, like the other villains, is welcomed into the fold at the end.
- It may not have solved all the conundrums of the work, but at least one gets to appreciate Mozart’s genius uncut.
David Larkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.