Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte can be treated as pure jollity, but then the deadly serious Masonic rituals (whether one knows they’re Masonic or not) will be jarring; it might be a parable of growing up and learning to love and trust, but how seriously will that be taken if there’s a man dressed in feathers? Put all elements together and you get a cruel queen, a noble king, a slobbering, villainous Moor, a prince, a pretty girl, three boys who come and go for no explainable reason, three hench-women, and a man and woman who dress like birds. Better make it about life and death and call it a day.
And that is what Robert Carsen has done in this April, 2013 production from Baden-Baden in that festival’s first season with the Berlin Philharmonic as its pit band. (More about that later.) I admired his “dream sequence at Versailles” production of Lully’s Armide but thought the schoolboy/classroom staging for Handel’s Rinaldo failed (both seen only on DVD); I’ve had mixed feelings about his leaf-strewn Onegin at the Met.
This Flute is less odd than it seems at first. Michael Levine’s sets present us with a dense forest at the rear of the stage; the greensward extends not only to the front of the stage but around the orchestra pit. The chorus, in modern street clothing (as is everyone), enters and circles the pit during the overture, looking down at Simon Rattle and the players; when they leave, and the stage is somewhat better lit, we see Tamino attempting to climb out of a freshly dug grave, “pursued by a dragon”. In an accompanying bonus-interview, Carsen explains that there are more than 60 references in the text to death or dying—hence the graves (there are more later) and the stage strewn with coffins.
The first act ends with Pamina and Tamino entering the underworld, spooky and complete with Halloween-like masks and skeletons. Seasons change with videos by Martin Eidenberger; friendly animals and birds come and go. Trials passed (just mummies, with fiery and watery projections), then back uptown and the forest: the journey is literally from light into darkness and back; or from life to death and back. If this all sounds morbid, it isn’t—it’s just odd. For the final chorus all of the characters carry “magic” flutes, and at the opera’s close, all surround the pit again—celebrating the power of the music itself? How Orpheus! It’s actually uplifting.
But: the gravediggers are Sarastro’s men and they, like their leader, are blindfolded for most of the performance. The Queen of the Night isn’t really a bad person—she’s in cahoots with Sarastro, who may be her boyfriend. And are Pamina and Tamino being tested for strength of character, as is normally assumed, or are their “parents” just trying to find out if they’re ready to get married? Women are part of Sarastro’s chorus, though they remain silent.
Papageno is a sort of hippie/bum, in torn clothing and with camping gear—how does he fit in? His mouth is locked in the first-act quintet by a remote-controlled car key—we hear that funny beep. And so, graves and all, there is lightheartedness, but Carsen has done little to give it “meaning”. Perhaps this is wise, since it’s all too rich to take in with one notion, as noted in my opening paragraph. But I suspect viewers will feel somewhat hungry for resolution and an overriding sense of unity, as I did.
Musically—particularly vocally—we are on very strong ground, without graves. Kate Royal is hands down the Pamina for the ages. The voice is beautiful and round, her bearing absolutely natural, the slight flutter in her upper register adding intensity and demonstrative density. Pavol Breslik, equally charming of figure and face as his Pamina, uses his perfectly Mozartean sound with sensitivity and a wide range of dynamics and colors. There is some muscle in the voice as well.
Michael Nagy’s Papageno is charming and well sung, and if he lacks the overwhelming potency of, say, Hermann Prey, it may be Carsen’s emphasis. His Papagena is good enough. Ana Durlovski sings the Queen impeccably, and even manages to sound ferocious in her second aria. Still, few sopranos can match the young Edita Gruberova or Diana Damrau in both accuracy and conviction. Dimitry Ivashchenko is a mellow Sarastro, refusing to sound too authoritative (he’s the anti-Talvela): the tone is fine, the delivery a bit reserved. The lineup of the Three Ladies is astonishing: Annick Massis, Magdalena Kozena, and Nathalie Stutzmann, all in black, watch, even when they are not singing. The only real problem with them is that they often don’t sing together—their part in the second-act quintet with Papageno and Tamino is sloppy. The Three Boys ravish the ear, and having José van Dam as the Speaker just adds to the class of the production.
Rattle’s leadership is a bit shy. Perhaps to rein in the overwhelming sound the Berlin Philharmonic can make (here reduced, at any cost), the instruments occasionally take such a back seat that they’re not quite there. It may be the recording acoustic but I think not. And the fact that the singers occasionally are somewhere different from the players makes me believe that there is, in general, an issue with the sound. (I can’t believe the performance was under-rehearsed.) But it isn’t constant and one revels in the orchestra’s lushly beautiful playing. Besides all of that, you do not get a sense that Rattle has a clean notion of the opera’s meaning either (Hello, Mr Carsen).
With Klemperer, Karajan, Böhm, and, later, Gardiner, et al, we get a feel for the alternating frivolity and deadly seriousness; here there is no distinction. Sarastro’s first aria is taken quickly, even casually. The notes in the booklet tell us that this is Rattle’s first time leading this opera, and while I have nothing against an earn-while-you-learn program, the Baden-Baden Easter Festival is not an out-of-town tryout locale. And so despite the glories of Royal and Breslik, the Levine from Salzburg/1982 (Arthaus) is better; the Colin Davis-led Covent Garden production, though very serious (Opus Arte) is best.
