What opera offers the most mystical and monstrous animal figures, the sweetest music and the scariest mother figure?
Yes, our opera for the week is Mozart’s Magic Flute, in two fabulous and famous versions, both staged in 2017 and coming to us livestreaming this week.
David McVicar’s classic production offers a fantastical world of dancing animals, flying machines and dazzling starry skies at Royal Opera House.
You can watch the ROH production on YouTube from 20 June to 4 July our dates.
The ROH production starred two divas new to Covent Garden, Australian Siobhan Stagg (who by all accounts makes a spunky woman from the usually pallid Pamina) and French soprano Sabine Devieilhe (a formidable Queen of the Night). It also featured Roderick Williams now famous for his portrayal of the birdcatcher, Papageno.
It was a triumph for Stagg. 'As the heroine Pamina, Siobhan Stagg is a touching and musically delicious discovery - although those of us fortunate to have heard her jump-in account of Rossi's Orpheus would expect nothing less. The young Australian is the next big thing.'
Reviews here from Bachtrack and opera today.
Magic at the Met
And the Met production screens on Monday, June 29 (from 9.30am to next day 8.30 am) our time.
It's a 2004 staging by Julie Taymor, deservedly famous. More animal puppets, more stars and colour, but very differently used. It offers a dream world of music and colour that Bachtrack reported ‘has aged beautifully despite (or maybe because of) lacking all the electronic visual effects that are de rigueur today.’
The Met’s production also brought a new star – South African Golda Schultz playing Pamina. (This production made it to Sydney in 2012 – different cast, of course!)
Both productions were very well received, and the comparison will be interesting – and gives us time to consider what on earth Mozart was doing with this bizarre and beautiful opera. This reviewer's comments about the Taymor production would fit both:
‘Mozart dazzles and delights, and while he has your attention, he slips in something that seems both profound and universal, often enlightening, sometimes devastating. Die Zauberflöte is unsurpassed in this regard, and that is why this production is irreplaceable. It honors Mozart by completely indulging in all the things the composer, and his essential collaborator Emanuel Schikaneder, used to entertain: the magic, the wild beasts, the priests, the mixing of theatrical parts and virtuoso singing, and of course the triumph of love. By doing that, it gives greater meaning and impact to the opera’s messages about humanism and Enlightenment values. While clearly manifest, the more serious overall themes charm in direct proportion to the entertainment that surrounds them.'
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