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Duncan Rock (Papageno) and Rhian Lois (Papagena) shine in ENO's The Magic Flute: ‘part pantomime, part arcane enigma’. Photograph: Donald Cooper
Duncan Rock (Papageno) and Rhian Lois (Papagena) shine in ENO's The Magic Flute: ‘part pantomime, part arcane enigma’. Photograph: Donald Cooper

The Magic Flute; The Bartered Bride – review

This article is more than 11 years old
Coliseum; Peacock theatre, London

Four fluttering doves, a flying bird's nest, white columns, hieroglyphs, the blue-haired Queen of the Night: after 25 years and 14 revivals English National Opera's classic staging of Mozart's The Magic Flute launched the new season in reassuring style, continuing to woo audiences with its intelligent charms as it always has. This, we are told – not for the first time but probably for the last – will be positively, definitively, without question, categorically the final revival of Nicholas Hytner's production, with its serene yet playful designs by Bob Crowley. Is there anything new to say? With Mozart's late opera, part pantomime, part arcane enigma, there always is.

Directors struggle to find the right way to handle its constant shifts, from slapstick to philosophy, anger to laughter, moonshine to blazing sunlight. The nature of Sarastro's smug wisdom is distinctly uneasy once you begin to examine it closely, which, perhaps mercifully, this production does not (you soon slide into L Ron Hubbard terrain if you do). The dialogue can sound arduous especially when, as here, everyone's vowel sounds seem to come from different continents. Only Rhian Lois, as the delightful tea lady Papagena, sounded wholly authentic in her Welshness, perhaps because she is Welsh.

It matters more that they can sing, and they could, impressively. ENO should congratulate itself on having secured 28-year-old baritone Duncan Rock as Papageno, who this week won the first £10,000 Chilcott award for young British opera singers. Elena Xanthoudakis was highly original, even quirky and intense, as Pamina. Tamino (Shawn Mathey) had an awkward start but quickly settled into fluent lyricism. The Queen of the Night (Kathryn Lewek), secure in her coloratura frenzy, showed the right degree of crazed anger. Her Three Ladies, led by Elizabeth Llewellyn, were a high-class and formidable trio. The Three Boys shone, showing touching humour and earning noisy applause.

Much of the excitement came from the pit. Nicholas Collon was making his ENO conducting debut and enticed well-paced, zestful playing from the orchestra, with special praise for the "magical" instruments so crucial in this opera – flute and, via Papageno's bells, percussion. Apart from one over-eager splashed string chord at the start of the overture, the musicians sounded glad to be back in harness. The noises off – birdsong, gushing water – are a distraction, the ad libbing not yet fluent but there is plenty of good comic potential. Papageno seemed a bit alarmed when, after asking for a bride to save him from a lonely death, a woman in the second row stalls volunteered her services. It's an idea that might catch on.

Another 25th anniversary was celebrated this week. British Youth Opera, founded in 1987 to showcase the next generation of opera singers, celebrated its birthday with Smetana's The Bartered Bride and Judith Weir's early career triumph, A Night at the Chinese Opera. I chose the Smetana, hoping that if anyone could redeem this awkward comedy – not that I mind beauty contests, bartering brides or poking fun at stammerers, or maybe I do – it might be the young and talented.

There are some who say this long opera is best abandoned after the glorious overture. The wooden plot revolves round the putative bride, Marenka, being in love with one brother but finding herself betrothed to the hopeless other. Her chief interest is in getting her man, though in this Dallas-Annie Oakley world you often wished she'd get her gun too, just for interest. Katherine Crompton sang engagingly with lovely, bright top notes. It will be well worth seeing how she tackles a more complex role.

These performers, mostly graduate students whose alumni include ENO's music director Edward Gardner and Cardiff Singer of the World Katarina Karnus, did their utmost, with many sparkling moments in between the longueurs which seem to be written indelibly into the work's dramatic pacing, however lavish and starry the forces staging it. The cheerful updating to Prague, Oklahoma in the 1950s provided ample opportunity for tight-waisted prom frocks, beehive hairdos and saloon-bar camaraderie perfectly in keeping with Smetana's Bohemian folkloristic original. Directed by Rodula Gaitanou, with designs by Cordelia Chisholm, it used simple devices to good effect.

The conductor, Peter Robinson, kept the tempo moving with good support from the Southbank Sinfonia. If the boxy acoustic did not always flatter their ensemble, they still gave rhythmic energy to the Czech dance rhythms which are the highlight of the score. The bonus for BYO is the large ensemble cast. Luis Gomes (Jenik) displayed promising lyricism as her lover. Matthew Stiff found a nice lightness of touch for the stolid marriage broker Kecal, and if no one else leapt out from the cameo roles, all were well taken.

There's no point attempting political correctness in this opera. You can make "black'' Monostatos white, as in Hytner's The Magic Flute. You can play down racism, colonialism, antisemitism, sexism as displayed in so many 19th-century masterpieces. But there's not a thing you can do about Vašek's stammer. It's embodied ineradicably into the notes, expressed in an aria of broken, hiccuping phrases, bar after agonising bar. Samuel Furness, a fine tenor who can also act, commanded the stage as the poor, shy, tongue-tied boy who eventually finds his inner grizzly bear by joining a circus. There's a message in there somewhere.

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