Glitter and be gay

Photo: Ken Howard

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What: Mozart's The Magic Flute
When: May 24 – June 28, 2014
Where: Opera Theatre of St. Louis

There's never a dull moment in the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis production of "The Magic Flute." That's because director Isaac Mizrahi keeps his performers (including a cast of seven dancers) in constant motion. The resulting stage pictures are impressive, but they often threaten to eclipse the music and text.

Written towards the end of the composer's sadly brief life (Mozart had only a few months to live when it premiered in September of 1791), “The Magic Flute” was intended not for an audience of nobles at court but rather for ordinary folks at a suburban theater that was closer in ambience to a tavern. A singspiel with spoken dialog instead of recitatives and a text in German instead of the fashionable Italian, the work is the fantastic tale of heroic prince Tamino and princess Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, who must undergo a series of magical trials at the court of Sarastro, High Priest of the Sun, before they can attain enlightenment and be united in marriage. Accompanying Tamino in his quest is the comic bird catcher Papageno.

The work's fanciful setting and Masonic symbolism—both Mozart and his librettist Emanuel Schikaneder (the first Papageno) were members of the same lodge—have always given directors and designers ample opportunities to indulge their imaginations. Mr. Mizrahi has taken classic films as his inspiration, placing the opera on "an eternal Hollywood soundstage" and incorporating visual elements from famous movies. Thus, for example, Tamino's black and white outfit strongly echoes that of Gene Kelly in "An American in Paris," while the Three Spirits that assist Tamino, normally played by young boys, are sung here by a trio of young women decked out as toddlers and walking on their knees as in the "Triplets" number from "The Band Wagon." Papageno looks like a classic baggy pants comic, his future mate Papagena is an archetypical chorus girl, and the Queen of the Night appears to be inspired by Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard."

Photo: Ken Howard

Indeed, the Queen of the Night provides one of the opera's most visually striking moments as she sweeps up from the stage left vom in an impressive midnight blue gown with a train that follows her all the way up the stairs that lead to the upstage center catwalk, growing in volume until it fills nearly the entire stage. It's a hell of an entrance, and very effectively establishes her melodramatic and self-aggrandizing character.

Scenes in Sarastro's Temple of the Sun are equally impressive, as Mr. Mizrahi fills the stage with Shriners in red fezzes and sports coats, colorful dancing birds, and even dancing statues of Isis and Osiris.

Mr. Mizrahi has, in short, allowed his fertile imagination to give us an almost constant procession of color and movement. And that, ultimately, is the problem. Because far too often that movement pulls focus from the singers and dilutes the impact of their generally fine work. This is especially true when, early in the first act, Mr. Mizrahi begins adding dancers to the mix who shadow the singers in identical costumes and mirror in dance what they're singing. John Heginbotham's 1950s film musical–style choreography is very effective and beautifully performed, but it's also extremely distracting and has the effect, more often than not, of upstaging the singers.

That's a pity, since the cast of this "Magic Flute" is generally a good one. Tenor Sean Panikkar, last seen as Lensky in OTSL's fine "Eugene Onegin" in 2010, is pretty much an ideal Tamino, with a uniformly strong voice and solid acting skills. Baritone Levi Hernandez brings the same finely honed comic sense and crystal-clear diction to Papageno that he brought to Leporello in "Don Giovanni" two seasons ago.

Photo: Ken Howard

Soprano Elizabeth Zharoff, a former Gerdine Young Artist, is the very essence of wide-eyed innocence as Pamina, with a lovely fluid voice. Her Act II "despair" aria was masterfully done. Soprano Claire de Sévigné was a dramatic and compelling Queen of the Night, but (at least on opening night) seemed to have a couple of rough spots in the notoriously challenging Act II "revenge" aria.

Tenor Matthew DiBattista, who has graced the OTSL stage with so many fine performances in the past, delivers yet another as the villainous Monostatos, whose lustful intentions towards Pamina are repeatedly thwarted to comic effect.

Bass Matthew Anchel's Sarastro is a bit of a disappointment. A bass's very low notes are always difficult to project (and Sarastro's part goes very low in places), but even so his voice seemed to lack power throughout its range and his character came across as stilted. That might be deliberate—Mr. Mizrahi has indicated that his sympathies are more with the Queen of the Night than with Sarastro—but if that's the case I don't think it's an effective choice.

There's noteworthy work here as well in all the minor roles, all the way down to tenor Frederick Ballentine and bass-baritone Zachary Owen as the Two Armed Men, smoothly delivering their "purification" chorale prelude before Tamino and Pamina's trials by fire and water.

Photo: Ken Howard

Conductor Jane Glover, who was so impressive in Don Giovanni in 2011, once again demonstrates that she is a dab hand at Mozart, leading the musicians in a bracing and sensitive interpretation of the score. Her reading of the overture was one of the best I've heard.

Speaking of which: I have a dream that some day I'll see an opera on the Loretto Hilton stage in which the overture will not be accompanied by lots of noisy stage business. One can but hope.

In a review of Robert Lepage's Ring cycle at the Met in 2011, New York Times critic Charles Isherwood noted that “the first responsibility of the director should be serving the musical drama,” and went on to describe a production that “seems to be perpetually in competition for our attention with the opera itself.” I wouldn't go quite that far with Mr. Mizrahi's "Magic Flute" since, the dancers aside, his staging generally clarifies and enhances the opera overall, but it does often feel as though he's doing his level best to distract us with flash and glitter. I think this production, while generally successful, could have been much better had it been much simpler.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis's "The Magic Flute" runs through June 28th in rotating repertory with three other operas. To get the full festival experience, come early and have a picnic supper on the lawn or under the refreshment tent. You can bring your own food or purchase a gourmet supper in advance from Ces and Judy's. Drinks are available on site as well, or you can bring your own. For more information: experienceopera.org.

Magic to do

experienceopera.org

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The Memorial Day weekend is almost here. For most of us, that means cookouts, family gatherings, and other varieties of making merry. For us opera lovers, though, it also means a different type of celebration: opening night at Opera Theatre of St. Louis.

Since 1976, Opera Theatre has been presenting productions that have drawn press from all over the world to the main stage of the Loretto-Hilton Center. I've seen most of them over the decades and have been reviewing them consistently since KDHX went on the air over 25 years ago. I've been entertained, moved, excited, annoyed, and even infuriated, but rarely bored.

Now, if your image of opera comes from pop culture, you might find that last sentence surprising. Surely opera is just a bunch of overweight Italians bellowing away in foreign languages for a bunch of bored socialites, right? Well, I won't say that I have never seen productions like that (mostly in other cities), but only almost never at Opera Theatre.

That's because Opera Theatre, as its name implies, understands that opera is a form of theatre, and that dramatic values are just as important as musical ones. The singers are also capable actors, are generally physically right for their roles, and sing their roles in English.

Granted, the company also provides projected English text stage left and right, but that's because opera singers do not, in general, articulate as well as their musical theatre counterparts (possibly for very good reasons; see Roger Highfield's article in the Telegraph from 2004 and an interesting 2010 blog post by "Porcamiseria"). That doesn't change the fact that at Opera Theatre the libretto is as important as the music.

The 2014 season offers a world premiere, a local premiere, and two returning favorites. You can see a complete list at the Opera Theatre web site. Right now I'd like to just drop a few well chosen bytes on you about the first production, Mozart's “The Magic Flute.”

Written towards the end of the composer's sadly brief life (Mozart had only a few months to live when it premiered in September of 1791), “The Magic Flute” was intended not for an audience of nobles at court but rather for ordinary folks at a suburban theater that was closer in ambiance to a tavern. A singspiel with spoken dialog instead of recitatives and a text in German instead of the fashionable Italian, the work is a fantastic tale of a pair of lovers who must undergo a series of magical trials in order to attain enlightenment before they can be married. The libretto by dramatist, impresario and actor Emanuel Schikaneder (who produced and performed in the premiere) is filled with Masonic symbolism (Mozart was a lodge member) and is, as Peter Branscombe and Stanley Sadie have written, "above all an opera of the Enlightenment. In it, the forces of darkness and light are counterposed: the former in the person of the Queen of the Night and her entourage, the latter in that of Sarastro and his priestly community, which erects temples to Wisdom, Nature and Reason."

Isaac Mizrahi
Photo By George Chinsee

The production's director is Isaac Mizrahi, who rose to fame as a fashion and costume designer. His entry into the world of operatic direction is relatively recent. His 2010 “A Little Night Music” for Opera Theatre, with its fairies and surreal imagery, raised a few eyebrows and, based on his public statements so far, his “Magic Flute” might do the same.

That's because he's setting the opera not in the magical realm of the libretto but rather in the more prosaic location of a motion picture soundstage. The logic behind this, as he stated in an interview for stltoday.com, is that "the only place I can suspend disbelief about magic taking place is a soundstage". Will this make sense on stage? We'll see.

In addition, Mr. Mizrahi has elected to make some changes to the original text in order to make The Queen of the Night—usually seen as the representative of Darkness and therefore the villain of the piece—more sympathetic (Mizrahi sees her as being “like Greta Garbo”), and to tone down the text's negative attitudes towards women generally. In this he has the support of his conductor (and Mozart scholar) Jane Glover, who takes the position that the anti-woman attitudes of the libretto are something the composer felt he had to put up with rather than a reflection of his own views. Her 2005 book Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music is highly regarded.

On this, as with the setting, the jury is out until we see how it all plays. There is, I think, a danger in making the Queen too sympathetic in that it could undermine the pro-Enlightenment foundation of the work but, as the old wheeze goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The essentials: You can get your heaping helping of “The Magic Flute,” along with the rest of the Opera Theatre season, at the company web site. Opening night is this Saturday, May 24. The season runs through June 28. For the full festival experience, come early and have a picnic supper on the lawn or under the refreshment tent. You can bring your own food or purchase a gourmet supper in advance from Ces and Judy's. Drinks are available on site as well, or you can bring your own. For more information: experienceopera.org or 314-961-0644.