Opera Reviews
28 March 2024
Untitled Document

A fun-filled Magic Flute



by Catriona Graham
Mozart: The Magic Flute
Scottish Opera
June 2019
Bethan Langford, Jeni Bern, Sioned Gwen Davies (Three Ladies), Peter Gijsbertsen (Tamino))

When Scottish Opera premiered Sir Thomas Allen’s production of The Magic Flute in 2012, Victorian steam-punk was a ‘thing’. Seven years later, it is revived in the very different context of #MeToo and ‘fake news”. Does it still work?

The overture begins with a painted small proscenium arch, decorated with masonic symbols and a showman, who turns the spotlight on a young man in one of the boxes. He comes down to the stage and is bundled through the small door in the arch. When the curtain rises, he is being dressed in white by a group of women in nun-like habits.

Designer Simon Higlett provides a masterclass in how colourful a monochrome palette can be. Apart from a few gold waistcoats, Monostatos’ purple frock-coat, and some rude mechanicals in shades of khaki, clothes range from black through greys to white. Except Papageno and Papagena, of course, the most colourful characters of all.

For all the drooling over Peter Gijsbertsen by the three ladies, his Tamino is uptight, in close-fitting frock-coat and spats. One feels that being banned from talking to his love is no great hardship. It is clear, too, how he appeals to Dingle Yandell’s Sarastro, who is solemn, measured, and utterly rational, with a voice to match.

Pamina is a bit drippy too – Gemma Summerfield, in petticoat and corset, lacks agency despite her protestations, but sings sweetly nonetheless. She is in despair and, even when her mother, the Queen of the Night, arms her with a knife, she shows no real signs of using it. Monostatos (Adrian Thompson), though clearly evil and with a sense of entitlement, is remarkably ineffectual at it.

Julia Sitkovestsky’s Queen of the Night, in spangled black like her burlesque bustier-clad Ladies, conveys all the emotion that her nemesis Sarastro eschews. The Queen’s and Ladies’ headdresses are spectacular confections of light and shape.

The three boys are suspended at the back of the stage, twirling brollies like whitewashed Mary Poppins as they sing, until they come down to rescue Pamina from her despair.

And then there is Papageno. The showman reappears in half-mast breeks, looking a bit like the late Ken Dodd. Richard Burkhard has a busy part, enriched by Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s highly colloquial translation of Schikaneder’s libretto. There are lots of quirky bits; while Tamino gets a magic flute Papageno gets bells, which turn out to be a little manikin back pack. Disconcertingly, once Papageno has a drink – from the wacky baccy in the hookah – the manikin starts nodding and turning his head.  When he finally gets his Papagena (Sofia Troncoso delightful in fluffy brown tutu) it is impossible not to share their joy in each other. And oh, I had forgotten the blue, egg-shaped perambulators.

The magic flute does work – it turns arresting guards into handkerchief-waving morris-dancers, as well as protecting Tamino and Pamina from the ordeals; Mark Jonathans’s lighting and the boiler-room set come into their own when the stokers start shovelling coal and releasing steam from the pipe-work.

Throughout, Tobias Ringborg and the orchestra keep Mozart’s music tripping along and, despite the dodgy sexual politics, send the audience out with a smile – and the feeling that, whatever the masonic interests, Mozart and Schikaneder leaned more to Papageno than Tamino and Sarastro.

Text © Catriona Graham
Photo © James Glossop
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