Mozart’s fantasy opera with its philosophical/Masonic themes is here placed in a Magritte-inspired Surrealist setting with Jungian analysis of the individual’s relationship with religion and the state.
Dominic Cooke's work places the story in a room with nine doors and a cloud filled sky straight out of Magritte's paintings. We then have the monster from Emanuel Schikaneder’s 18th century Viennese blockbuster transformed into a giant lobster and the chorus dressed in orange coats and bowler hats and matching umbrellas.
Kids will find this a very easy opera to follow, particularly Act One, with crystal clear singing in English of Jeremy Sams' translation (and there are of course surtitles), plenty of jokes and obvious humour.
The singspiel element of spoken dialogue can be a real problem for modern audiences and it certainly jarred in the Company’s dreary Fidelio this season. But here it was so natural and flowed with the songs perfectly.
You really can understand why this was a popular success with Mozart’s contemporaries and yet again raised peals of genuine laughter from this audience.
The Three Ladies Camilla Roberts, Carolyn Dobbin and Joanne Thomas are splendid with Kevin Pollard’s prim maids outfits, ghost white faces but with scarlet petticoats. Newport’s Neal Davies is a charming and genuinely witty feather-costumed Papageno, throwing in the odd modern aside adding again to the panto feel of the evening but always underpinned by this singer’s musicality.
Add to that the silliness of the pantomime comic animals such as a lion reading a newspaper, a bird wearing stilettos and powdering her beak and the deathly pallid henchmen dancing round to Papageno’s bells.
Peter Wedd’s hero price Tamino is a rich voiced and suitably noble tenor and his princess Pamina is sung with confidence and virtuosity by Elizabeth Watts making her debut in the role.
In this revival Sarastro sung by Tim Mirfin has seemingly magical powers which contrast slightly oddly with his message of reason and light over darkness and deceit. He provides the serious backbone to the work but of course many of us really thrill to the trills of the Queen of the Night. Sadly, this was not a real fireworks performance from Laure Meloy although she did look wonderful.
The three boys are as cute as they need to be and no problems here with Gareth Jones' conducting while the chorus are back on their usual excellent form.
|
