Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
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A stylish, witty Magic Flute



by Douglas Elliot
Mozart: The Magic Flute
New Zealand Opera
16 June 2016

NZ Opera’s Magic Flute opened in Auckland on Thursday night in a new production by Sara Brodie. A unit set of 4 towers with upper halves branching into trees allowed free-flowing action, entrances and exits possible through the towers and a trap door. A variety of items came down from the flies, including an alarming spider, and ladders allowed the performers into the trees and to move across a bridge of branches. Special effects included a sound background, smoke and flashing lights – all good fun, but I could have done without the noisy fire and water effects that turned the sublime march during the trial scene into relatively faint background music.

For all the excellences of design and production, perhaps the most striking thing about this performance was the use of Kit Harvey-Hesketh’s translation (free adaptation?) from the original German into English. There was some awkward scansion, but it was mostly apt and very funny in a Gilbertian way with clever rhyme schemes and wordplay. There was lots of laughter from the audience.

All the cast had excellent diction, but the main beneficiaries of the translation were the well sung Three Ladies, who were both amusing and predatory, and Samuel Dundas, the Papageno. His was a real star performance in a way that Papagenos should be, but aren’t always. All the main characters’ dramatic arcs are getting solved by the second half of act two, other than Papageno’s. He has two arias, a dialogue scene and then a duet while finding his lively Papagena. Dundas, engaging in speech and song, showed exactly why Schickaneder, the impresario and actor who commissioned The Magic Flute and created Papageno, loaded all this material at the end of the evening for himself.

Ruth Jenkins-Robertsson, glittering and venomous, and Wade Kernot, warm and benevolent, made a nicely opposed Queen of Night and Sarastro, though Kernot’s lowest notes tended to vanish. Randall Bills and Emma Fraser were a handsome leading pair. Fraser’s pure soprano turned a bit glassy on high. A standout in the supporting cast was James Clayton, who played the Speaker with conviction and steady tone, and then popped up as an Armed Man and a Priest later on.

Wyn Davies led the Auckland Philharmonia in a fleet performance, with enough rubato when required, and fairly minimal vibrato, all clearly relishing the changes of style and tone that characterise this opera. The Freemasons NZ Opera Chorus sang strongly, bringing out the Beethovian pre-echoes of much of the choral writing.

So a most enjoyable evening, continuing NZ Opera’s run of successes.

Text © Douglas Elliot
Photo © Marty Melville
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