Mozart The Magic Flute – Opera North – Live Review

Friday 15 November 2024

Lowry Theatre, Salford

****

An imaginative production brings out the humanity in Mozart’s last opera

Last Friday the revival of Opera North’s 2019 production of Mozart’s Magic Flute came to a packed Lowry Theatre in Salford. The opera opened with a little girl, dressed in bright yellow pyjamas and dressing gown, getting ready for bed, while a party took place in the next room. In a clever conceit, the girl put on a vinyl record and as the crackles began the orchestra of Opera North started playing the overture. The girl remained on stage for large parts of the opera. Director James Brining had the imaginative idea of framing the opera with the girl’s presence at the beginning and end, as a possible ‘rationalisation’ of The Magic Flute‘,

“is [the opera] merely a figment of the girl’s imagination? Is the story of a young princess [Pamina] who is fought over by Sarastro and the Queen of the Night a symbol or a fantasy for a child caught in the middle of a domestic dispute in a real, alternate universe.”

At the end of the opera, the girl took centre stage while Sarastro stood at the side, reinforcing the idea that the opera was a product of her imagination. Brining was inspired by Swedish film and theatre director Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film of the opera, which shows his daughter Linn’s reaction to the opera she is watching at various points during the film.

On Friday, the opera itself began with Prince Tamino (Russian-Ukrainian tenor Egor Zhuravskii) being attacked by a dragon, wittily inspired by Dr Who monsters such as the Macra, whose crab-like arms poked through the scenery at either side of the stage, provoking laughter from the audience. The Three Ladies, handmaids of The Queen of the Night, appeared with more icons from popular culture – lightsabers! – to attack the dragon and then fought over the handsome Prince, almost tearing him limb from limb. The Ladies were a compelling mix of pantomime characters, Valkyries and women from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale with white face-obscuring bonnets and ominous-looking blood on their outfits. Charlie Drummond, Katie Sharpe and Hazel Croft sang with gorgeous ensemble and the orchestral pacing beneath them under conductor Oliver Rundell was perfect. Rundell’s conducting was excellent throughout, dynamic, delicate, sensitive, responsive and clear.

The Magic Flute is an opera of opposites such as day and night and man and woman. Director James Brining said he was profoundly influenced by the dichotomy described in William Blake’s poem ‘The Clod and the Pebble’ from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, published only three years after the opera was written.

‘The Clod and the Pebble’ from Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattles feet:
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.

William Blake

The sets were designed to illustrate the stark contrast between the world of nature, represented by The Queen of the Night, and the world of reason represented by Sarastro and his followers. The natural world was in Brining’s words,

“… in a state of ruin, with organic things, like trees being hung in mid-air, with blood… with organic things, like trees, being hung mid-air, with blood dripping off the fruits, birds and animals.”

In contrast, in Sarastro’s world, everything was,

“…. vivid, very clean and clinical. Men and women are segregated, people are divided and ordered.”

Brining was also influenced by Blake’s print Newton, which shows the scientist Isaac Newton surrounded by nature and ignoring it in favour of rationality. But Brining didn’t want the production to be a simple dichotomy between reason and imagination. The act of saving Pamina showed ‘compassion and sensitivity’ that went beyond binaries.

The contrast was also seen in the costumes. According to designer Colin Richmond, the Queen of the Night’s costume was like ‘an odd mix of queen, scarecrow, plucked bird and 1930s Hollywood glamour gone to seed.’ Sarastro was nobly arrayed in a costume that was a cross between a prince and a priest, with henchmen wearing sunglasses that gave them a slightly seedy air. His followers were dressed in red, like women from The Handmaid’s Tale. Monostatos was dishevelled and superbly played like a creepy uncle by Colin Judson, attracting a hearty ‘boo’ from the audience at the end as a pantomime villain.

The imaginative set and staging were matched by the quality of the singing. Egor Zhuravskii as Tamino had a sweet, ardent light tenor, his arias, as Jessica Fitton wrote, looking forward to the Italian bel canto era. Anna Dennis as the Queen of the Night was superb. In her moving first aria, she brought out the pathos and humanity of losing her daughter Pamina to Sarastro’s clutches. She negotiated the stratospheric top Fs of her later aria ‘Hell’s vengeance…’ [‘Der Hölle Rache…’] with smooth control and apparent ease. Sometimes singing four octaves (!) below her, Msimelelo Mbali as Sarastro had a lovely, dignified deep bass voice and a speaking voice to match. Claire Lees as Pamina sang beautifully, in a lyrical, legato style. She was equalled in vocal quality and interpretation by Pasquale Orchard as Papagena, who also brought humour to her part with a jolly, witty dance with Papageno, bringing an element of subversion as she raised her skirts in apparent contravention of the strict dress code of Sarastro’s followers. The Three Boys, Isla Jones, Isabelle Baglio, Hector Wainman were all excellent.

But the star of the show was Emyr Wyn Jones as a very human Papageno. The lovely, warm rich tones of his voice matched the warmth of his personality. Wyn Jones was born in Aberdare, South Wales and his gentle Welsh accent was very attractive in the spoken word sections. Many critics have found these sections problematic, dating right back to the premiere when a German critic wrote that the opera failed, ‘to have the hoped for success, the content and the dialogue of the work were just too terrible.’ But if they are removed – as they have been in some productions – there’s a danger that the opera can lose some of its ability to communicate. And Wyn Jones was a great communicator; some of the other singers were at times a little stilted in the spoken word parts. He brought great humour when he counted to three and asked the women in the audience if any of them would have him – judging by their reaction, there were many potential takers!

This was a very attractive, lively performance of Mozart’s great opera. The emphasis was on communication – the opera was sung in English with subtitles, and the sets and costumes clearly delineated the opera’s themes. Some superb singing and orchestral playing helped engage the audience in the strange world of this opera; several teenage school children sitting in the audience were clearly entranced.

Performers

Egor Zhuravskii Tamino
Charlie Drummond First Lady
Katie Sharpe Second Lady
Hazel Croft Third Lady
Emyr Wyn Jones Papageno
Anna Dennis The Queen of the Night
Colin Judson Monostatos, servant of Sarastro
Claire Lees Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night
Three Boys :
Isla Jones
Isabelle Baglio
Hector Wainman
Andri Björn Robertsson The Speaker
Msimelelo Mbali Sarastro
Pasquale Orchard Papagena
Tom Smith First Priest
Paul Gibson Second Priest
Satriya Krisna First Armed Man
Richard Mosley-Evans Second Armed Man
Chorus of Opera North
Children:
Reuben Amedzro, Leroy Ayidana-Ayalingo,
Otis Borlant-Mills, Felicity Lovejoy,
Emilia McLean, Harry Ndawula,
Maria Vasilache, Niamh Walker
Oliver Rundell Conductor
Colin Richmond Set and Costume Designer
Chris Davey Lighting Designer
Douglas O’Connell Video Designer
Tim Claydon Choreographer

Sources
Duncan, Dean, Ingmar Bergman’s Film Version of The Magic Flute in The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute (Cambridge University Press 2023)
Bergman, Ingmar, The Magic Flute (1975)
Noor, Shamima, Magical Thinking (Opera North Programme Book)
Fitton, Jessica, The Magic Flute in a Nutshell (Ibid.)

The Magic Flute returns to Lowry, Salford Quays on 13/14 March 2025. Other dates in 2025: Leeds Grand Theatre 12, 13, 15, 22 February; Newcastle Theatre Royal 6, 7 March; Theatre Royal Nottingham 20, 21 March; Hull New Theatre 27, 29 March.