The Magic Flute

It is 13 years since I last saw a WNO Magic Flute and that production has been replaced by this new one, so how did it do?

This production is sung in English with a translation by Daisy Evans, when I say translation what I mean is really a rewrite with most of the recitative replaced with "down with the kids" dialogue and therein, for me, lay the problem with this production. It is not that I am a purist or a traditionalist, more that the production didn't seem to know what it wanted to be. Maintaining all the main arias and some recitative meant that at times this was a full-blown, and beautiful, operatic show and then it dropped into plain dialogue just didn't seem to work. Dialogue, especially when it is peppered inconsistently with "street speak" just doesn't sit comfortably into an operatic production with its huge sets, costumes and voices. Well, that's how it struck me.

The set and lighting are crazy, in a good way, with designs reminiscent of 80s computer games or Flash Gordon - plenty to watch but there was a lot of manual set pushing in addition to the revolve which sometimes got in the way. The orchestra sound was, as always with the WNO, magnificent and the voices of the singers strong and clear - who needs surtitles when there is such quality in the vocals! I particularly enjoyed the ladies-in-waiting and the "Young Ones" whose voices merged so beautifully and provided much of the comedy. Oh and Jonathan Lemalu (Sarastro), what a voice.

The trials lacked any real sense of moment and each was over before I realised it had begun and I didn't feel any real build towards a final climax or resolution. In fact, across the whole production there was insufficient change of pace to keep me engaged, it was full-on all the time.

I am not sure what the underlying philosophy of this production was. An attempt to speak to a younger, less opera-aware, audience perhaps? A experiment in losing the Masonic influences and seeing what is left?

I am not against adaptation and updating, but it has to speak true and this simply did not. In the end, it left me flat. Your mileage may vary of course.