If you ask theatre director Simon McBurney to produce an opera, expect the enfant terrible to throw the book at convention. The Metropolitan Opera’s “new” McBurney production of Die Zauberflöte is a book thrower. And the cash-strapped Met is overselling it. This Zauberflöte is not “new”.
The Met’s own, current version – a perfectly delightful, beloved but now permanently truncated production, dusted off for holiday season outings only – was produced by Julie Taymor, a master of vivid stage presentations. It dates back to 2004 and is visually spectacular. It says it all for the Met’s straitened finances that digging deep into the ENO back catalogue was needed to source an inferior replacement.
There are quite a few miles on this “newbie’s” clock. ENO launched McBurney’s Zauberflöte, incidental music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto – but not surtitles – by Emmanuel Schikaneder, as long ago as 2013. ENO is launching its own revival in 2024. The surtitles emasculated the libretto, turning the fine words of Schikaneder into back street slang.
Set aside the “new” stuff. Is this production any good? Bad bits first. My biggest gripe is that the work is more McBurney than Mozart. And he has created such self-indulgent frenetic stage action that it’s often difficult to follow the plot. For those unfamiliar with that plot, pause here.
Next biggest gripe. Having Papageno urinate into a bottle he’s using as part of a set replacing his glockenspiel magic bells, to help hit the correct pitch, you understand, is infantile. It was commented upon by every audience member in an impromptu post performance vox pop as, “offensive”.
Mega-Gripe. Characterising the Queen of the Night as an old bat in a wheelchair. She is meant to be a serious threat to Sarastro’s rule, not a late-stage escapee from a terminal care hospice. Her great, defiant Act II war cry aria lost all of its menace when conducted with a shaky walking stick.
Uber-Mega-Gripe. The three boys, who appear to guide Tamino and Papageno in times of trouble, were kitted out as diminutive old men, also with walking sticks. Maybe the props manager had got lucky at a local walking stick yard sale. As their whole purpose is to represent innocent youth offering guidance, making the three of them eligible for a bus pass sort of missed the point.
Any good bits? Quite a lot, actually. The decision to breach the fourth wall and mix the onstage action with the orchestra and audience was involving and worked well. Even though some traditionalists were tut-tutting. The audience as a whole, especially the kids, loved it. I was one of the kids.
The orchestra was raised in the pit, so the players and conductor, Nathalie Stutzmann, were totally visible, heads on a level with the stage. The singers often entered and exited through the pit, Tamino’s passages playing the flute were executed as a combo with the flautist, Seth Morris who clearly relished his bit part.
Much of the action took place on a suspended platform which tilted at impossible angles. The cast, sometimes barefoot, must have had glue on their soles.
Front stage right there was a bench housing the visual effects department. Instructions and pointy arrows hand-chalked on slate in front of a camera, projected onto opaque screens onstage, including rubbing out. Projection Director, Finn Ross was in full view throughout. Watching his precise skills was a joy.
As was focusing on the workings of the Foley Machine, front stage left. Er… what the hell is a Foley machine? Foley is a motion picture term, named after an old pro, Jack Foley, where sound effects are created by a Foley artist as he or she watches the projected film. Think silent movie horses.
Ruth Sullivan from London was Ms Foley for the evening, taking refuge behind a fake, well stocked bar, making timeous noises with running water – Papageno urinating – clip-clopping footsteps, and stroking a large rectangular metal thunder machine. Watching her time her actions perfectly in sync with the action was more fun than concentrating on the opera.
Ruth’s credits include The World is Not Enough, Downton Abbey, and The Five Wives of Melvyn Pfferberg. Not sure who Mr Pfferberg is, but I bet he was well and truly “Foleyed”.
Papageno, Thomas Oliemans, acted his socks off, at one stage diving into the auditorium and crossing the theatre across the mid row seats. He shoved his way past mostly tolerant members of the audience, whose astonishment was projected on the set with a shaky handcam. Halfway over he stumbled over a Queen of the Night look-alike who nearly had a heart attack. He pushed manfully through. She survived.
The singing was glorious. Laurence Brownlee, the American tenor was a resonating Tamino, Erin Morley, American coloratura soprano a faultless Pamina, Stephen Milling, imposing Danish bass, bearded for the occasion was Sarastro. And the family of Kathryn Lewek, dazzling American soprano, Queen of the Night, will have been surprised to learn she is really an old hag for whom funeral preparations should be made imminently.
Queen of the Night is one of those roles that collapses in ignominy if the seemingly impossible series of rising, “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-has” is not executed effortlessly. In spite of the waving stick, Lewek swept them away. No-one needed to be on the edge of their seats.
A redeeming detail was the inclusion of two dog-collared clerics in Sarastro’s court. Sarastro is presiding over a freemason community, but much was made in Mozart’s day of the point that those of all faiths or none were free to join. There they were, the token gestures to tolerance, quietly mingling with the rest. A McBurney sharp eye.
I asked the Met if McBurney – who features in big type on the program – had actually turned up in Manhattan to direct the production. Omerta. We’ll take that as a “no” then. So, until I’m told something to the contrary, I shall assume the burden fell on Associate Director, Rachael Hewer, misplaced at the bottom of the credits. Misplaced, because the presentation of the work, like it or not, was slick, imaginative and faultless.
Hewer is British, the partner of composer Mark Anthony Turnage – another enfant terrible – the driving force of Vopera, a company which delivered cutting edge virtual opera during lockdown, in association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Hewer is the Revival Director for ENO in 2024. At least ENO is upfront about it.
The production is dark. Sarastro’s court is clad in grey. It’s run by Sarastro’s factotum, a clip-board-bearing bean-counter who looked as though he had just been made redundant by Ernst and Young. There should be sun, brightness, the light of reason to penetrate the darkness of The Queen of the Night. No such thing.
Some visual effects were stunning. The trial by water, where Tamino and Pamina seemed to be swimming, suspended in a tank of water; the overhead projection displayed on a backstage screen, of Tamino and Pamina hand in hand victorious over their trials amid the chorus of Sarastro’s court.
I wonder if the Met twigged what McBurney was up to before they signed up for this Zauberflöte. He has founded a career out of pushing the naive beyond the point of no return if they don’t offer pushback. Watch him “extracting the Michael” out of Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of The Independent in a 2011 interview about McBurney’s passion, Rabelais.
McBurney takes over after two minutes, simply reading lines from Rabelais to the audience, containing an avalanche of scatological vulgarities. Well, there’s Rabelais for you. “Bum”, “arse”, “fundament”, “sh.t”, “excrement”. All the while, taunting Tonkin to intervene and stop the torrent. Tonkin helplessly twiddles nervously.
And that, I fear, is what those at the Met who commissioned this Die Zauberflöte did too. Calling McBurney’s bluff and stripping out some of the nonsense would have left them with an interesting successor Die Zauberflöte fit for purpose. They could, of course revisit the production next season and, if they can’t completely stop McBurney taking the piss, at least prevent Papageno dishing it out.
And another thing!
On a Sunday afternoon, in an opera galaxy far, far away from the Met – 25th Street to be exact, between Lex and 3rd – the little OPERA company of New York was working its magic with a double bill of American One Acts – Highway 1, U.S.A., by William Grant Still and Down in the Valley, by Kurt Weill.
It was a joint production with Harlem Opera Theater and National Black Theater. The performers were highly talented youngsters, singing their hearts out. BUT! Who on earth was that?
Aunt Lou in Highway 1 looked a touch out of place. Dare I say, “older”. She was mezzo soprano Isola Jones, well known regular at the Met, who had performed in Verdi’s Rigoletto with Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland. In 1981!
Clearly Ms Jones, sorry, “Dr” Jones, has no intention of throwing in the vocal cords. She only recently acquired her PhD in music performance. And although she could no longer main-stage at the Met, she was brilliant in the smaller space of the Baruch Theater.
I’m on a mission to find out what she’s up to. Jones must be in her late 70’s. Actually, quite young, come to think of it. Only in New York!
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