I want to reveal the secret right at the beginning of my post. The magic flute is music and its power to comfort and change hearts. When the music is as sublime as Mozart’s you can really believe in magic.
Last night my wife and I were enchanted by Lyric Opera’s charming and affecting new production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1791 Singspiel, a form that includes both music and spoken dialogue, the Magic Flute. The production is one of the finest and most creative we’ve seen at Lyric and I’ve had season tickets there for more than 35 years.
The work is imagined as taking place in a suburban backyard circa 1960 as a performance put on by the children of the neighborhood. The set designer put a nearly fullscale Cape Cod house on the Lyric stage. There are Disney references galore: Prince Charming (Tamino), Snow White (Pamina), the witch in Snow White, Maleficent (The Queen of the Night), and probably others I didn’t identify.
It isn’t often that the best vocal performances in a production of Magic Flute are by Tamino and Pamina but that was the case in this one. Matthew Polenzani as Tamino and Christiane Karg as Pamina were the vocal standouts in the cast.
Magic Flute has the widest vocal range of any opera in the common repertoire. Sarastro’s part has a lower tessitura and The Queen of the Night’s a higher tessitura than any other opera in the common repertoire. There are performers who build their entire careers performing Sarastro or the Queen of the Night. One, the other, or both of the performers filling those roles are frequently the standouts in a performance of the Magic Flute. Sadly, that was not the case in this production. Our Sarastro and Queen of the Night gave workmanlike performances but not much beyond that.
But the production! The sets, costumes, the kids, the dogs (sometimes wearing manes to impersonate lions), the animal outfits, the concept, the staging are all among the best we’ve ever seen at Lyric.
For those who’ve seen the Magic Flute before this production is a delight. For those for whom it’s their first Magic Flute if not their first opera as well it might be confusing and I’d recommend boning up on the opera a bit to understand what’s going on.
There are still a few performances left. See this production if you can.
The Critics
John Von Rhein at the Chicago Tribune:
Yes, it’s that hoariest of operatic cliches, the show within a show, this one laced with nostalgic nods to familiar Disney characters and TV sitcom iconography of the period. The directorial conceit, while a huge stretch, didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment of the opening performance Saturday night at the Civic Opera House, and the audience responded with cheers.
In fact, once you accept the basic premise of Australian director Neil Armfield’s production, it’s easy to tune it out and focus on the essentials — Mozart’s glorious music and what Lyric’s gifted international performers do with that music.
The new “Magic Flute” replaces the well-worn August Everding production Lyric trotted out at regular intervals over the last 30 years. I liked its gentle storybook whimsy, but its replacement has its own childlike sensibility that should wear well with most adults and kids.
Kyle Macmillan at the Sun-Times:
Australian director Neil Armfield, who has staged two previous Lyric offerings, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream†in 2010-11, has set this interpretation in an Austrian expatriate enclave in an idealized 1960s “Leave it to Beaver†vision of suburban Oak Park, Ill.
In this conceit, the neighborhood children mount “The Magic Flute†with the help, obviously, of some first-rate professional singers who just happen to be around, and dozens of parents sit on lawn chairs in the back yard to take it all in.
What results is a kind of opera within an opera, with the action taking place around an amazingly realistic two-story house, which rotates on a massive stage turntable and is set against a striking, star-specked night sky. (Dale Ferguson served as designer for both the sets and costumes, which are a combination of picture-perfect 1960s middle-class apparel for the residents and suitably fantastical garb for the opera’s characters.)
It must be said that Armfield admirably carries through his concept, and there are some no doubt appealing moments, such as a dozen children in adorable Halloween-like costumes portraying a group of animals in Act 1. And, of course, the three mysterious boy genii who usually seem other-worldly come across as perfectly natural here.
That said, it’s not hard to see this production as directorial over-reach. In many ways, the staging distances audiences from the story rather than bringing them closer. Instead of having to wrap their imaginations around one fantasy, here they suddenly have to contend with two.
Lawrence Johnson at Chicago Classical Review:
Director Neil Armfield–helming his first Zauberflöte–has transplanted Mozart’s timeless fantasy into suburban America, c.1962 judging by the costumes. In this demythologized staging, the opera is put on by children–clearly musically sophisticated ones–in their backyard. Befitting the “hey kids, let’s put on an opera†theme, the costumes and effects are homemade and cheerfully chintzy: the serpent is made of cardboard boxes and golden glitter is tossed at magical moments. An onstage audience of parents and neighbors watches the patio show from lawn chairs, applauding the action, like the play within a play in Pagliacci.
Dale Ferguson’s unit set is a massive, revolving bilevel house. The Queen of the Night makes her appearance from a second-floor balcony, Tamino and Papageno hide in a basement shed, and the signs for the three temple doors are hand-written on cardboard.
Mozart’s score is such fail-safe titanium that even the dubious concept and mundane visuals are not fatal. Once past the initial setup, the action is played straight for the most part and, aided enormously by an excellent cast, one is simply carried away by Mozart’s remarkable music.
Deanna Isaacs at Chicago Reader:
This conceit, by Australian director Neil Armfield, could be an excuse for skimping on production costs. The flashiest parts of the story—a man-eating dragon, an awe-inspiring temple, trials by fire and water—are definitely tamed by it. But it doesn’t feel shortchanged: on the contrary, it looks like money (and a lot of thought) was lavishly spent to create the perfect illusion of a ragtag kids’ show, complete with a cardboard-box monster (by Blair Thomas), ancient priests draped in sheets and chenille bedspreads, and family pooches in a walk-on as fearsome lions. “Neighbors” are both participants in the show and the onstage audience.
Sets and costumes (by Aussie designer Dale Ferguson) draw on the pop culture baby boomers grew up on: Princess Pamina (exceptional soprano Christiane Karg) is decked out in her Snow White costume and hair; her mom (impressive coloratura Kathryn Lewek) is a dead ringer for Disney’s evil queen, and Tamino ( British tenor Andrew Staples through January 8, then local favorite Matthew Polenzani) is the familiar Prince Charming in his bow-and-arrow hunting outfit.It’s also a concept that could turn too cute in a hurry, but it doesn’t. While some of the serious and problematic spots in the libretto have been softened, its Enlightenment message of the need for reason, wisdom, and equality is intact, along with Mozart’s enchanting score.
Memorable performances among the uniformly solid cast include tenor Rodell Rosel, who turns the problematic villain Monostatos into a nasty/funny scene stealer; bass-baritone Adam Plachetka as the easy-living, mate-seeking bird catcher Papagano; and the three “wise boys,” local youngsters Casey Lyons, Parker Scribner, and Asher Alcantara. Rory MacDonald conducts the Lyric Opera orchestra and chorus.
