Die Zauberflöte
Royal Opera House
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Linbury
There is a hard core of central works which any major opera house needs to have, in a production that can survive many changes of cast and conductor, even of obtrusive revival director. Die Zauberflöte is unquestionably among them, a work that we constantly need to remind us of those easily mocked truths about what we should do with our lives, how high we should aspire and what the cost of aspiration may be. David McVicar’s production seems to serve the purpose, if not ideally: the overpowering settings of John Macfarlane are more notable than anything that we see the characters doing. Huge quantities of masonry slide noiselessly around, though often without a clear object; lots of dry ice, mainly dim or crepuscular lighting; sudden moments of enlightenment when children are shown being instructed with the help of an orrery, and other arresting images which don’t actually have much to do with Mozart’s opera.
This time round Zauberflöte is being given 11 performances, with two casts. The first cast is notable for two great singers, one of them a great actor too, but for nothing else. The conducting is so undistinguished that one must ask once more why the Royal Opera roams the world seeking foreign mediocrities when there are plenty around at home. Roland Böer gives a reading of the score that casts no new light on it, and does it the damage of making Mozart’s sublime simplicities sound banal. Those cadential phrases that bring many of the numbers to rest merely resemble a bumpy landing under Böer, and Sarastro’s rather platitudinous aria ‘In diesen heil’gen Hallen’ is given such a plonking opening that one is bored before he even begins his pious (and hypocritical) sermonette.
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