Vocalists Take the Background in Mozart Opera

Yesterday afternoon the San Francisco Opera (SFO) presented the second of its nine scheduled performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 620, The Magic Flute. SFO Music Director Eun Sun Kim conducted, and it would be fair to say that the activity in the orchestra pit was the most “standard” aspect of the production. Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky, both making their SFO debuts, conceived a staging inspired by the early days of Hollywood silent films and cartoons. In that setting the vocalists appeared almost entirely through their voices, taking a back seat (so to speak) to a plethora of visual effects.

As Merce Cunningham used to say of his choreography, “Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t!” This was probably the richest serving of eye candy ever to be presented in the War Memorial Opera House, and there was no questioning the rich imagination that Andrade and Kosky brought to their staging. What was missing was any convincing account of who all of those characters were and what the motivations (talk about Hollywood lingo!) were behind their actions.

Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto for Mozart’s opera is far from standard. On the surface the libretto seems to follow the conventional “hero’s journey” analyzed by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this case the hero is the prince Tamino (tenor Amitai Pati); and his “mission” is given to him by the Queen of the Night (soprano Anna Simińska). Papageno (bass-baritone Lauri Vasar), who catches birds for the Queen, is the hero’s sidekick. The “mission” is to rescue the Queen’s daughter Pamina (soprano Christina Gansch) from Sarastro (bass Kwangchul Youn).

However, by the time the “journey” has advanced to the end of the first act, the path has taken an unanticipated twist. Sarastro turns out to be a father-figure protecting Pamina from the bad influences of her mother. This prepares the narrative to pursue a new path during the second act, a path that leads from unbridled passion to a more disciplined enlightenment. Thus, by the end of the opera, the Queen and her supporters have been confined to eternal darkness, while Tamino and Pamina become the “new generation” of enlightened spirit. Meanwhile, Papageno is rewarded for his service to Tamino with a wife of his own; and the two of them set about to populate the world with a new generation of (presumably enlightened) children.

Unfortunately, there was little in that aforementioned “plethora of visual effects” that served to advance this narrative. Thus, any sense of character resided almost entirely between voice and music in a context of striking visuals that did little more than “do their own thing.” Mind you, there were probably many in the house (myself included) for whom the plot was so familiar that the visuals could engage, rather than distract. Indeed, there were ways in which the visuals took over from the spoken dialog, which could then be eliminated. As a result, the transitions across the musical numbers in the opera itself were filled by additional Mozart music, fortepiano performances by Bryndon Hassman of the two fantasias, K. 397 in D minor and K. 475 in C minor.

Lauri Vasar channeling Buster Keaton in his performance of Papageno (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

In that context vocal delivery tended to vary significantly. Both Youn and Vasar tended to be weak in their deliveries. (Vasar at least had the advantage of successfully channeling Buster Keaton when he was on stage.) Also, the screen for the projections (which, more often than not, provided the center of attention) came across as a bit too wide to accommodate the needs of the entire audience. However, given that projected images provided the primary “guide” through the narrative, they served their purpose, even if certain “side effects” were not always evident to all.

I must confess that I have been hooked on this opera since my secondary school years. It was the first opera for which I purchased a pocket score (which I still have). I love every note of the music and now have several different recordings in my collection (none of which are neglected). I enjoyed every minute of Kim’s interpretation of Mozart’s score, and I had no trouble negotiating the liberties that Andrade and Kosky took with Schikaneder’s libretto. However, having now experienced those liberties, I came away feeling, “Once is enough!”