THE MAGIC FLUTE – REVIEW OF 2025 OPERA ATELIER PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Opera Atelier, the magical organization of Marshall Pynkoski  and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg,  is celebrating its 40th year of productions in Toronto and around the world with a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. They give us a vibrant, exciting, colourful and  enjoyable production that must not be missed.

Anyone who has never seen a production of The Magic Flute is in for a treat. Those who may have seen it many times (23 times for me) will be reminded that you never tire of seeing some works.

If you have never seen the opera, you may want to read some background. It is not really an opera but a singspiel. That means a play with songs, maybe like a traditional musical. It has dialogue and songs and it was written for the popular theatre in 1791 for the purpose of making money. The libretto  was written by Emanuel Schikaneder a man who worked in the popular theatre, the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. It uses common German, has low (make that people’s) comedy and high Masonic wisdom and ambitions. Don’t worry about the latter, you don’t have to know anything about the Masons.

Prince Tamino is lost in the forest and almost devoured by a prehistoric Monster. Tenor Colin Ainsworth has sung this role many times and handles it again with vocal assurance and splendor. Tamino is saved by three beautiful and gorgeously dressed Ladies (Carla Huhtanen, Danielle MacMillan and Laura Pudwell) who work for the Queen of the Night (Rainelle Krause). They go to tell their employer about Tamino and Papageno (Douglas Williams) who arrives to claim credit for saving him. He is funny.

The Queen of the Night is not funny but she has a beautiful daughter called Pamina (Meghan Lindsay) and she can belt out some high Fs to knock your socks off. She wants to kill Sarastro, her husband, and the high notes sound like bullets from an AK-47 Kalashnikov. The shots, I mean high notes, may not have been perfect but the audience went wild over them on opening night.

Scene from The Magic Flute. Opera Atelier

That’s the high-minded stuff. The people’s humour is provided by Papageno, the bird catcher who lives in the forest, knows nothing about the rest of the world, is a bit of a coward and wants to find a pretty maiden to marry. A lovable human being. Williams has  a terrific bass-baritone voice and a well-developed sense of comic acting.

Tamino arrives at the Temple of Wisdom. Pamina’s father Sarastro (a splendidly voiced bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus) is the kind ruler and all will become clear when Tamino qualifies to join the brotherhood of the Temple. We meet the nasty and lustful Monostatos (tenor Blaise Rantoanina) who has a comic side. Pynkoski underplays the evil in Monostatos and emphasizes his clownish part,  

Tamino and Papageno must endure trials to prove their virtues in order to join the temple. We have the serious and the comic in tandem with hilarious results when Papageno cannot keep up. We all know that the two will make it and Tamino and Pamina will show their requisite character traits to join the Temple and marry.

Papageno will get his playful Papagena (Opera Atelier veteran and lovely-voiced soprano Karine White).

This production is spoken and sung in plain English from a translation by Andrew Porter. There are even surtitles for the songs but you may not need to look at them all.

Gerard Gauci designed the colourful and otherworldly sets. The Queen of the Night is lowered from up high to the stage in spectacular fashion. Colors, beauty, spectacle are emphasized and the mythical story is reflected in the costumes of original designer Dora Rust D’Eye and Resident Costume Designer Michael Gianfrancesco.

Ms Zingg has choreographed the dances performed by the Artists of Atelier Ballet with the usual iridescent beauty.

The Tafelmusik Orchestra performed on period  instruments under the baton of David Fallis.   

If this is your first Magic Flute or you need more than your fingers to count the number of times you have seen it, it is all the same. You will be captivated by the magic flute, the magic love story and the magic fun of this production.

I tip my hat once more to our local magicians, the co-artistic directors of Opera Atelier, Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg for their extraordinary contribution to civilized life in Toronto.
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The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder opened on October 15 and will be performed until October 19, 2025, at the Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.operaatelier.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture, of The Greek Press, Toromto.