Simon McBurney's prodigious 'Magic Flute' dazzles at Les Arts | Culture | EUROtoday

“The music and the scene are exquisite, the rest is an implausible farce.” Count Zinzendorf famous it in his diary on November 6, 1791, after attending one of many first performances of The magic Flute, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, within the standard Viennese theater of Emmanuelle Schikaneder. The abundance and heterogeneity of this singing playfilled with great music and spectacular stage results, however whose plot combines the intense and esoteric with the completely happy and standard, has by no means been simple for stage administrators.

Today the problem of designing a scenic proposal for The magic Flute It is extra arduous than ever. Its misogynistic content material is jarring, as is the racism in the direction of the character of Monostatos, and it contrasts the advantages of the Enlightenment with colonialism and slavery. For that cause, what has been seen supervisor British Simon McBurney, final Thursday, June 6, because the fruits of the opera season on the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia, has been completely prodigious.

The manufacturing brilliantly conveys the basic message of the opera with out trivializing it or hiding it behind considerate mental constructions. It is summarized within the formulation that we learn within the last variety of the opera (magnificence + knowledge [belleza+sabiduría]), whereas including an emotional last reconciliation between Sarastro and the defeated Queen of the Night. A profitable proposal premiered in 2012, on the Netherlands National Opera, from a co-production with the Aix-en-Provence Festival and the English National Opera, however which has even traveled to the Met in New York, the place the final season.

McBurney reinvents Schikaneder's scenic spectacularity and ideally integrates it with Mozart's music. But he does all of it with astonishing financial system of means. The surroundings is proscribed to a multifunctional platform, designed by Michael Levine, which rises, tilts and rotates, making a frenetic dynamism. On each side of the stage we see two kiosks. On the left works the video artist Blake Habermann, who movies reside all of the scenic results that we see within the background, whereas including a number of particulars by drawing and writing with chalk on a blackboard. And, on the suitable, foley artist Ruth Sullivan shows an exquisite panorama of sound results.

Nicky Gillibrand's casual costumes and Jean Kalman's exact lighting full the stage crew. However, the British director consists of some extras and mimes who use sheets of paper to simulate flying birds. He gives irony within the portrayal of some characters, with Sarastro changing into a populist chief, Monostatos changing into a poor pervert and the Queen of the Night changing into a disabled outdated girl. And it consists of sensible concepts like reworking the three boys into outdated males, the three women into lascivious guerrillas, or Papageno right into a single vagabond as humorous as he’s shifting.

Everything integrates just like the equipment of a clock. The stage crew interacts with the singers, the director and the musicians of the orchestra, which is positioned on the top of the stage, and this enables the superb flute soloist of the Valencian Community Orchestra, Magdalena Martínez, to be given a curious function. scenic. But the superb results of this revival directed within the Turia capital by Annemiek Van Elst wouldn’t have been attainable with out such a compact vocal forged on a musical and theatrical degree, and the sensible route of New Yorker James Gaffigan.

The proprietor of the Valencia Opera returned to the Les Arts pit after his profitable season opening with The queen of spades. And he ensured an orchestral response filled with spark and fluidity from the overture, with that well-known eighth notice theme that Mozart borrowed from a Clementi sonata and reworked right into a contrapuntal marvel. His studying knew tips on how to combine every quantity with the dialogues and stood out particularly within the building of the in depth endings of every act. Musical licenses, derived from manufacturing, such because the deletion of the no. 11, the duet Beware of ladies’s methods, and the advance of quantity. 19, the trio Should I, that was heard after quantity. 10, have been right. In truth, this final determination resolves one of the vital severe inconsistencies in Schikaneder's script in relation to the character of Pamina.

In the vocal part, the winner of the night time was the North American soprano Rainelle Krause, with the 2 well-known arias of the Queen of the night time. She shone brighter within the anger of the second act, Hell's Revenge, which he sang with confidence and quantity within the huge coloraturas, and which preceded an admirable monologue the place he orders his daughter to kill Sarastro. Precisely, Pamina by Barcelona native Serena Saénz starred in a number of the principal musical highlights of the efficiency. Like her great vocalizations on the finish of the primary act duet with Papageno, In malesto which he joined an beautiful aria Oh, I really feel it In a second.

In the male part, the big bass Matthew Rose stood out as Sarastro. The British exhibited a darkish, dense and uniform timbre in his aria with choir Isisand a liederist phrasing within the aria on this holy halls. The Italian tenor Giovanni Sala was an beautiful and musical Tamino, who tastefully nuanced his portrait aria This picture, though later it confirmed slight tensions within the excessive register. The American tenor Brenton Ryan carried out as Monostatos, with extreme haste in his aria Everything feels love. And the Hungarian-Romanian baritone Gyula Orendt made an admirable vocal and scenic creation as Papageno. His two arias have been the funniest moments of this manufacturing, like that hilarious instrument he builds with wine bottles and performs with two leeks, in A woman.

Among the supporting forged, Iria Goti's Papagena stood out, who sang her stunning stuttered duet with Papageno across the stalls interacting with the spectators. This younger soprano of Galician origin is a part of the Center de Perfectionament Palau de Les Arts, like different fascinating soloists heard on this manufacturing, such because the soprano Antonella Zanetti, the mezzo Laura Fleur and bass Irakli Pkhaladze. And very properly the three boys from the Trinity Boys Choir along with the strong Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana.

This manufacturing works the miracle of pleasing everybody, no matter their data or preferences. It was merely sufficient to have a look at the glint within the eyes and the grins of so many spectators on the exit of the Palau de les Arts to show it.

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