Reviewed by James
Karas
For its winter season, the Canadian Opera Company has revived its 2011
production of The Magic Flute. What is the most interesting and most
impressive thing about the production? You will never guess it but it is this:
it is an all-Canadian production. Okay, there are a few “visitors” but the fact
that the COC can produce an opera with mostly Canadian talent is worthy of
applause and a positive omen for operaphiles.
Director Diane Paulus has an interesting approach to the opera. (She
comes from that great neighbour, business partner and marvelous ally, the
United States – we have to say that these days). She imagines the first act of
the opera as a play-within-a-play. There is a small stage in a place with lots
of people milling around. It could be the interior of a stately house but with
so much people traffic it could be even outside.
In any event, there are some very colorfully dressed people (the chorus)
and a young man appears pursued by a monster - a white pretend-reptile. He is,
of course, Prince Tamino (tenor Owen McCausland) who is rescued by Three Ladies
and meets the bird catcher Papageno (baritone Phillip Addis). Tamino is shown a
picture of Pamina (soprano Kirsten MacKinnon), falls in love with her and we
are off to the races or at least to her father Sarastro’s (bass Matt Boehler)
palace.
The smaller playing area of the play-within-a-play gives way to more
monumental sets, statues of guard lions, colour effects, magical scenes and
wrought iron gates and high hedges with an impressive structure in the back.
Moveable hedges are used in different configurations for scene changes as
Tamino and Papageno go through arduous trials in order to become worthy to join
the brotherhood of The Temple of Wisdom.
The Magic Flute calls for numerous scene changes from the Palace
of Wisdom to gardens, to mountains, to groves which can mostly be hinted at but
the set by Myung Hee Cho works quite well with judicious use of lighting, the
hedges and other paraphernalia.
Kirsten MacKinnon as Pamina. Photo: Michael
Cooper
The singing by mostly members from the COC Ensemble Studio is
commendable if somewhat uneven. McCausland showed vocal agility and beauty as
Tamino. He does not have a big voice but he was a delight to watch. Kirsten
MacKinnon sang a sympathetic and sweet Pamina.
Bass Matt Boehler has the rumbling low notes to make a fine Sarastro but
he was not at his best in “O Isis und Osiris” one of the role’s main arias. The
orchestra threatened to overwhelm him and he just managed to keep up with it.
He did much better with “In diesen heil’gen Hallen” where he plunges into the
low notes and maintains control of the melody. Splendid.
Baritone Phillip Addis does well as the comic Papageno but he has to put
up with delayed reaction as we read the surtitles to get the joke. How much
better and funnier it would be if the dialogue were in English. We can’t blame
him but do give him credit for fine acting and singing. His interaction with
the delightful Papagena of Jacqueline Woodley is a pleasure to watch.
The Queen of the Night is like a big target in a shooting range.
Everyone has heard the highly distinctive “Der Hölle Rache” (even if they can’t
remember the name) where the soprano has to belt out those high notes as she
orders her daughter to kill her father Sarastro. Soprano Ambur Braid does just
that with passion and murderous defiance.
The Magic Flute has
some thrilling choruses from the solemn march of the priests to the final
“Hail” to Tamino and Papageno who have fought bravely and are rewarded with
eternal wisdom and beauty. Kudos to the Canadian Opera Company Chorus and the
Orchestra conducted by Bernard Labadie.
The Magic Flute was first produced in 1791 in the
rough-and-ready Theater auf der Wieden in a suburb of Vienna. Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist and
producer, was a man of the theatre with a taste for spectacle and broad comedy.
The Magic Flute has all of those
things and much more of course but would it not be nice if we understood all
the nuances, comic, Masonic and serious? Let’s satisfy the purists with keeping
the arias in German and let the rest of us have fun with the dialogue in
English. Deal?
_____
The Magic Flute by W. A. Mozart (music) and Emanuel Schikaneder
(libretto) is being performed twelve times from January 19 to February 24, 2017
at the Four Seasons Centre, 145 Queen St. West Toronto.
www.coc.ca
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