Mozart – The Magic Flute: ROHCG, 07/10/21

Conductor, Richard Hetherington. Cast – Tamino, Bernard Richter; Pamina, Christina Gansch; Papageno, Peter Kellner; Queen of the Night, Aleksandra Olczyk; Sarastro, Krzysztof Baczyk; Monostatos, Peter Hoare; Papagena, Alexandra Lowe. Director, David McVicar (Revival Director, Daniel Dooner); Designer. John Macfarlane

Both Jenufa the previous evening and this performance of the Magic Flute were extremely well attended. It was great to see the ROHCG at near or absolute capacity, and there was a real buzz in the house (though interestingly, and perhaps ominously, and despite repeated loudspeaker injunctions, maybe only 40% of the audience was wearing face masks. This may not end well………)

The last Magic Flute I saw was at ENO in April 2019 with the excellent Lucy Crowe as Pamina. I’m not sure this performance at Covent Garden was as good, but it was thoroughly enjoyable and more than competent

For anyone seeing this work for the first time, or with little experience of this form of music theatre, what would they have made of this performance?

• They would probably have admired the sets and the special effects: the dark heavy pillars of the temple, the wonderful moon, sun and night effects, the use of puppets, the Three Boys’ flying machine (though they might have wondered whether this work could be produced by ROHCG with equal impact at considerably less cost – whereas Jenufa needed the sort of design and sets that were offered, sometimes the Magic Flute sets seemed to say – hey, we’ve lots of money, we’re grand….!)
• I’m sure they would have loved Papageno and all the usual but never-failing gags- Monostatos and his men charmed by music; Papageno / Papagena etc
• They would have loved the music

I’m sure that quite a lot of the story they would have found baffling, from a number of perspectives:

• The muddled libretto with all sorts of loose ends – like why Pamina isn’t, and then is, allowed to undertake the trials
• Sorastro’s misogyny
• The general implication that women have to be ‘led’ / guided into enlightenment by men

What to do about the Magic Flute? This production did what it could, but all the usual embarrassments were there. My recipe for a production of this opera is as follows:

• Make absolutely clear that the Queen of the Night and her crew, and Sorastro and his merry men, are not to be seen as ‘ordinary’ human beings but rather as archetypes – the Queen of the Night standing for religion / superstition (and maybe the darker aspects of human nature – Mozart must have heard about what was happening in France by 1791 when he wrote this, however he might have approved of the initial stages of the Revolution); Sorastro for 18^th century enlightenment. If necessary have the Queen of the Night looking like the Pope!
• The ensuing production would then show that both aspects of being – religion and rationality – have a part to play in a whole and balanced human life. It would emphasise the severe trials of initiation that Pamina has to face, and make absolutely explicit that Sorastro has things to learn too and that Pamina’s initiation is not his wish
• To emphasise all the above, it would be OK to mess about with the text mercilessly. It’s already accepted in more modern productions (though this was not the case back in the 1970’s productions I saw of this) that they bowlderise the whole business of Monostatos being black – so why not go further?

The singers were good, but only one was outstanding. Bernard Richter, the Tamino, had a  heavier voice than a normal “Mozart” tenor. He was rather stolid in movement and at times his voice stood out when it should blend with Pamina or Papageno. In his big Act 1 aria he seemed to force his voice and it sounded a bit frayed at the top. Christina Gansch, the Pamina, was recently one of the finalists of the Cardiff Singer of the World contest, where I thought she had a lovely voice. Here, her Pamina was not an especially good performance, I’m afriad, though it was never less than adequate. Her voice seemed unfocused and slightly wobbly at points. The Papageno, Peter Kellner, was the best of the four main performer roles – his was an introspective and sometimes almost wistful reading of the part, with a warm rich voice. It was a very likeable portrayal. The Sorastro had a perfectly enjoyable  voice but nothing special or distinctive. The Queen of the Night, Aleksandra Olczyk, however, though not on the stage for very long, was in a different league, and gave a spectacularly good performance of her two high coloratura arias. The conductor was an ROHCG staff member, Richard Hetherington, doing one performance (presumably having helped to prepared the run for Helmut Haenchen, the conductor for the other performances). His conducting was too fast on the whole,  though the excellence of the orchestra meant that articulation was still crisp and clear despite the speed. But a lot was missed through cramped room for expression.

Everyone in the audience seemed to be very happy with the performance, and warmly cheered everyone!