Opera reviews: The Magic Flute and The Mighty Handful

4 / 5 stars
Mozart’s The Magic Flute

THEATRE de Complicite director Simon McBurney’s The Magic Flute is transformed from its disappointing 2013 first outing thanks to Mark Wigglesworth’s superb conducting and some directorial revision, which reveals its quirky enchantment.

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Michael Levine’s monochrome set and Finn Ross’s spectacular video designs complementing each other

Mozart’s comic opera about music enlightening lives is open to many interpretations. McBurney places it in a dream world where the ground can be cut from under your feet by a moving platform, with Michael Levine’s monochrome set and Finn Ross’s spectacular video designs complementing each other. 

The production gets off to a cracking start as Allan Clayton’s Prince Tamino is pursued by a horribly realistic python. Three feisty Ladies employed by the Queen of the Night kill the serpent and compete for the charms of the unconscious Prince but after falling in love with the portrait of the Queen of the Night’s daughter, Pamina, Tamino sets off to rescue her from the magus Sarastro.

Imaginative effects abound. 

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Mozart’s The Magic Flute by English National Opera

A videographer chalks up projections in large letters as to where we have reached in the story. Fluttering pieces of paper become a flock of birds circling the Queen’s bird catcher Papageno (Peter Coleman-Wright). The three boys guiding Tamino are seen as ancient children with white hair and sticks. Ambur Braid’s metallic-voiced Queen of the Night is a witch in a wheelchair. 

The production is perfectly cast in the two young lovers: Lucy Crowe shines as a golden-toned and rapturous Pamina and Allan Clayton’s lyrical tenor is a true Mozartian prince. Bass James Creswell is charismatic as Sarastro and Darren Jeffery impressive as Speaker.

The orchestra is raised from pit to stage level in full view of the audience, so there is no division between singers and musicians. We see before us those whose jobs are in jeopardy thanks to Arts Council cuts giving heart-lifting performances. It would be an act of vandalism to destroy a company that produces work of this calibre.

Opera: the facts

By contrast, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera emerged from its orchestra pit on to stage for just one night last week. The stage walls and ceiling were lined with wood, similar to the Barbican Hall, for the Russian evening of The Mighty Handful – the title given to a group of mid-19th century composers who re-invented an original Russian style, rather than copying Western music.

The orchestra, described by Pappano as “my army”, began with three colourful pieces from Rimsky-Korsakov; all shimmering strings, plangent harps, woodwind bird calls, and excited buzzing from “The Flight Of The Bumble-bee”.

Borodin’s heroic Symphony No. 2 was followed post-interval by Musorgsky’s St John’s Night on Bare Mountain, a snippet of Cesar Cui’s rarely performed William Ratcliff and Balakirev’s Islamey Oriental Fantasy. The evening left the audience wanting more, but Pappano declined to command “his army” to an encore.

VERDICT: 3/5

Mozart’s The Magic Flute by the English National Opera at The Coliseum, London WC2 (Tickets: 020 7845 9300/eno.org; £12-£125)

The Mighty Handful by the Royal Opera Orchestra/Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House, London WC2 (One night only)

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