The Magic Flute

This was the first time I had seen the Magic Flute,
an undoubted indication of my operatic unsophistication.

I usually start these little reviews with a synopsis of
the plot.  Not here.  Not that the Magic Flute has no 
plot (a common and not necessarily fatal flaw of operas).
On the contrary, it has enough plot for two or three 
operas.  I was completely surprised when it ended, 
because I figured that there was enough plot left over
for another half hour at least.

The production was totally different.  The story is a
fairly tale; one expects princes in tights and doublets,
with a gold circlet on their head.  This production was
set in a turn of the century hotel lobby, with all the
action taking place in a dream sequence.  So the singers
were dressed in tuxedos and evening dresses.  And all 
through, the hotel kept getting mixed up in the fairy 
tale.  The great serpent strangling the hero in the opening
scene is his own bow tie.  And the High Priest of the
Brotherhood (don't ask) was first introduced when he 
wandered through the lobby to deposit a letter in the
post box.  For some reason, the three guardian spirits
appeared as bell boys.

The baritone playing Papageno, the bumbling, happy-go-lucky 
sidekick, was very good.  He was totally believable, 
except in the scene in which he attempts suicide (an 
unbelievable twist of the plot which profitably could be
exported to another opera), for which I never saw an iota 
of psychological inclination.

The Queen of the Night is a small role, but I thought she
did a good job on her big aria, in which she demonstrates
that she is a bitch on wheels.

The tenor had a pretty good voice, but he did not impress 
me as really being either a dashing prince or a victorian
bon viviant.

Musically, Mozart can do no wrong, of course.  But I didn't
get swept along as I usually do, perhaps because I am not
very familiar with this opera.  Actually, I enjoyed the 
two preludes more than the music within the opera.

This was our first visit to the new (or greatly remodeled)
opera house.  It is now entirely roofed, so we'll not have
umbrellas going up in the middle of the house if it rains,
which must have been a considerable source of annoyance to 
those sitting behind them.  The main improvement from our 
viewpoint is that there are now wheelchair slots in the
middle of the house, which puts us about half the distance
from the stage that we were used to, which makes a great
difference.