The Magic Flute
14 February 2012 |
Posted by George Fleeton |
The Magic Flute
Review
By George Fleeton
Opera Theatre Company (OTC) is based in Dublin but has been touring its productions widely throughout Ireland for over twenty-five years.
Its most recent opera, Mozart’s Magic Flute, made its only appearance in Northern Ireland on February 11 in the Great Hall, Downpatrick.
This performance, which was not supported by Arts Council (NI), was sold out.
In 1791 Mozart conducted the opening night of the Magic Flute in Vienna, at the age of 35, seriously ill, and he died less than ten weeks later.
This was his final opera.
Fortunately that was not to be the fate of two singers in the Magic Flute last weekend.
Soprano Allison Bell arrived with a chest infection and insisted on singing the difficult music of her character the Queen of the Night.
Conchur Fitzsimons and Emily Shelley who took part in The Magic Flute
None of the fizz and fireworks - the well known tough vocal gymnastics of her role, in the second part of her Act I aria - were missing.
Her big Act II number, Der Hölle Rache, was given with astonishing ease and conviction, across two octaves and again with none of the passion or defiance missing.
In the circumstances, her performance redefined bravura.
Equally astonishing was tenor Adrian Dwyer’s bout of food poisoning, which is to say that he too insisted on travelling to Downpatrick to perform and mime both his sing and his spiel on stage, with OTC’s Young Associate tenor Eoin Hynes singing and speaking the part of Tamino (at less than twelve hours’ notice) from a music stand beside the ensemble.
Taken with that, Eoin had also to play three other small roles in the production.
Uniformly the entire cast of fourteen singers gave us a performance to remember for a long time.
Several members of the full house audience remarked it was the best opera they had ever attended in this town, which is saying a lot after 25 years of Castleward Opera, the final eight of which coincided with the annual Opera Fringe Festival.
Of course by the time the Magic Flute reached us, after touring to 17 different venues and giving 21 separate performances (since November 25), it had all come together beautifully, in a production brimming over with innovative ideas and touches of pantomime, exactly as Mozart’s librettist Schikaneder had intended 220 years ago: there were references to Wagner’s Valkyries, Mr Bean, the Vestal Virgins, puppetry, Cleopatra, Gilbert and Sullivan’s policeman (whose lot was not a happy one), the Keystone Cops, Freemasonry of course (it’s in the original libretto), Joan of Arc, Maid Marian, bi-plane flying helmets and goggles, magician’s eggs which appear from nowhere, Women’s Lib, and Red Army officers on the plinth of the Kremlin, thanks to a clever split level set with several discovery spaces.
This is called looking at familiar images from a different angle – plain old lateral thinking.
Two local children, Emily Shelley and Conchur Fitzsimons, completed the cast, as the younger versions of Pamina (Belfast soprano Emma Morwood) and Tamino, during their ordeals of fire and water towards the end of their odyssey from darkness to light.
Director Annilese Miskimmon introduced all these elements with the lightest of touches, and this drove the narrative forward, steady and straight, losing few of this opera’s psychological subtleties along the way, remembering it was given in a reduced chamber arrangement.
This was the first time any of us had heard Duncan Robertson’s new translation, although I am not so sure, yet, when he tells us that scientists believe that even listening to Mozart’s music can make you more intelligent.
But music director Brenda Hurley’s conducting of her six piece ensemble, from the piano stage right, would also be an argument in that direction.
The Magic Flute performance in the Great Hall was generously supported by the following business sponsors:
Downe Veterinary Clinic. (www.downevets.com),
Crane’s Tyre & Tube Centre.
Downpatrick Credit Union. (www.downpatrickcu.com),
Eamonn P McGrady & Co.
Fireplaces Direct. (www.fireplacesdirectltd.co.uk)
And was also substantially supported by Down Arts Centre
Future events in light classical music at Down Arts Centre will include four lunchtime recitals in June, Wednesdays at lunchtime, featuring local opera singers Mary McCabe, Debra Stuart, Marcella Walsh, and singer-songwriter Jayne Trimble.
Tickets for these shorter events go on sale on April 30.
© mmxii George Fleeton
