ROH’s The Magic Flute review – as fresh as the day it was first performed
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Not many people ask that question. But the science fiction author of the novel that inspired the Blade Runner film franchise, Philip K. Dick, did. He was referencing Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and he thought the composer’s deathbed swansong so fantastical it could inspire even today’s robotic farming community.
The Magic Flute has intrigued for 200 years, at many different intellectual levels. Often the opera is considered lightweight fun, the stuff of children’s matinee productions. Isn’t it pure pantomime? It kicks off with a giant serpent. There’s a frequently feathered bird catcher, Papageno, armed with magic bells; a prince-hero, Tamino, who waltzes through dangerous doors, tooting his flute to guide him on his way; three angelic boys in a flying chariot.
But hand in hand with the panto version, there is a highly political Flute. The struggle between the high priest, Sarastro, defending his Enlightenment-inspired cult of reason and science against the dark feudal forces of the Queen of the Night. When the opera was first performed in 1791, the Singspiel, a combination of singing and spoken word format, toute la rage at the time, sent shockwaves through Viennese society.
Goethe was so excited he planned a follow-up; Flute II. No one could leave the opera alone. Post-WWI, the Bloomsbury Group scholar Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (surely, he tops The Guinness Book of Records pretentious names section) wrote The Magic Flute Fantasia as a means of diverting attention from the horrors of trench warfare.
War themes continued. In the early noughties, a bizarre Kenneth Branagh cinema version presented by French film company Idéale Audience saw the Queen of the Night riding into battle atop a tank, spanning blood-soaked Pas de Calais trenches, crushing Sarastro’s minions under her tracks. This version was – how to put this kindly? – not a huge success.
Pierre Olivier Bardet, the founder of Idéale Audience, happens to be a family friend dating back to my teenage years, and I will never forget the awkward silence that greeted the rough-cut private showing in a chic Soho film studio.
Everyone has their own take on Flute, and it seemed to be a matter of minor detail at the time that Branagh couldn’t sing. But all’s fair in Flute and war.
This Royal Opera David McVicar Magic Flute dates back to 2003 and is as fresh as the moment it burst onto the Covent Garden stage to huge acclaim. I shall assume readers’ familiarity with the plot.
Apparently, the serpent has worn a bit and been re-sequinned in glittering red, but it’s impossible to tell. The set is timeless elegance.
Black marbled walls swooshing up and down, back and forth, revealing alternately the Queen of the Night’s crescent moon and Sarastro’s golden sun, which dominates backstage.
Science is represented by a massive, beautiful Orrery, pored over by studious children in Sarastro’s palace. The audience is left with no doubt that astronomy, not astrology, rules here.
Skilled puppeteers master the writhing of the enormous serpent in the opening scene as it hunts Tamino down. One puppeteer is also in charge of “the bird”. There must be a bird. Papageno is a bird catcher.
The genius of the bird is that it assumes a life of its own. A large device with rotating, webbed feet and a head capable of 180-degree contortions, it pecks food in the background, threatens Papageno and engages the audience with a gimlet gaze.
The bird is clearly in control of the black-clad puppeteer walking behind it. He is merely there for the ride. The Papageno of 2003, baritone Simon Keenlyside, had a Tyson Fury/Deontay Wilder relationship with that bird. Frequent knockdowns to the canvas.
Slovakian bass, Peter Kellner, as Papageno, was wise to keep a safe distance. Keenlyside famously engaged in hand to beak combat. The bird may be an important metaphor for something. More likely it is innocent, hilarious fun.
Sarastro is often cast as a ruler, morally superior, opposed to the reactionary forces represented by The Queen of the Night. The McVicar production portrays him more accurately as the custodian of intellectual traditions rooted in Egyptian times, reaching across the ages to 18th-century masonic symbolism. Priest, not monarch.
Often overlooked, the ROH programme is, at a mere £8, a bargain. In addition to the usual synopsis, cast, boring donor list stuff, there is a wealth of excellent background material.
An essay – Magic Flute, the Truth – by the Rev Sarah Lenton explains the high significance of the roles of the three ladies who serve the Queen, the mysterious three boys who guide Tamino and Papageno and Tamino’s choice of the door of “Wisdom” rather than “Reason” or “Nature” to enter Sarastro’s kingdom.
Lenton, a theatre chaplain, is a lecturer, broadcaster and all-around sharp cookie. Who would have ever thought that unfashionable God stalked the West End wings in this relentlessly atheistic day and age?
Jessica Quillin, a strategist, expert on Shelley and brand entrepreneur, writes of Die Zauberflöte’s place in literature. Gregory Dart, a University College London professor, expounds on the opera’s engagement with the Enlightenment.
Aleksandra Olczyk, a Polish soprano, took on the role of Queen of the Night. No review of Flute can skip over the execution of that second act Der Hölle Rache aria, F6 above high C, running coloratura phrases and sustained nail gun quavers.
For Ms Olczyk, it was a doddle. Not even a contorted face muscle as she breezed across all Mozart’s tripwires. Wolfgang had written the aria for his 32-year-old sister-in-law, Josepha Hofer to showcase her talents. Over the years she has been a difficult act to follow.
Musically stunning, visually engaging, intellectually challenging, there is nothing to dislike about this wonderful Royal Opera production of The Magic Flute.
There will come a time when a new production is commissioned. Meantime, this familiar David McVicar faithful is as good as it gets.