The cast and chorus of Mozart's The Magic Flute take a bow at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Photo: Leonard Turnevicius
(Berlin, Germany) When do you have a winner of a production?
When you've got kids lapping up the action happening on stage.
And so it was earlier this evening at the Deutsche Oper Berlin during Guenter Kraemer's production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Seated in front of me were two young girls accompanied by their grandfather. Throughout the entire opera, these two gals were on the edges of their seats, enthralled by the music and the action. One of them even hummed along to a couple of Mozart's tunes.
And why not? Simon Pauly stole the show as Papageno, especially with his audience friendly clowning with a wine chalice. While strutting on the gangway in front of the orchestra pit, he jokingly singled out someone in the front row and with a play on words called them (in German) a wine cellar (Weinkeller) before correcting himself and calling them a wine conniosseur (Weinkenner) to howls of laughter from the audience.
Opposite him, Anna Schoek was a hoot as the Old Hag/Papagena.
As for the leads, both Yosep Kang (Tamino) and Martina Weischenbach (Pamina) exhibited clear, and fresh tones in a somewhat winning style. Weischenbach's spoken dialogue in Act I did not project well in the hall.
Ante Jerkunica was a full sounding Sarastro, while Burkhard Ulrich was a more than capable Monostatos in black face.
Hulkar Sabirova's Queen of the Night had trouble pitching a couple of the high notes in Der Hoelle Rache, and more than one of her B flats displayed far too much spread.
The remainder of the cast from Stephen Bronk's Speaker, to the Three Ladies (Fionnuala McCarthy, Rebecca Jo Loeb, and Katarina Bradic), to the Armoured Men (Tom Blondelle and Ben Wager) were a capable lot.
Kudos to the unnamed three lads from the Boys' Choir of the Dortmund Choral Academy who were positively superb as the Three Genii.
Under conductor Evan Rogister, Thomas Richter's Deutsche Oper Chorus had a some difficulty with stage-pit coordination in the first act. Richter must either have some unmusical or undisciplined members. A number of them continued marching after the music had stopped at the end of Act I.
Andreas Reinhardt's costumes kept things simple. No feathers for bird-man Papageno, just a white robe. And no armour for the Armoured Men. In fact, this was pretty much a toga and sandals show, with a pyramid propping up a huge moon in one scene. One backdrop had an animal display--an elephant, a swinging monkey, and so on. The one constant was the tree seemingly growing out of the orchestra pit.
The audience showered the cast with applause, and there was some good-natured whistling, too.
Tomorrow, it's over to the Staatsoper and the Komische Oper.
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