The Magic Flute
***
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Fri 15 Feb
The problem with operatic comedy is that, generally speaking, comedy doesn’t travel well across the ages.
Yes we can all shout about the situation-based stylings of Shakespeare but the visual gags and the one liners from comedies of old, when thrust upon the modern audience, tend to feel a bit… well, panto.
But if panto is a flavour welcome on your palette and if you’re looking for a bit of frivolous fun this spring season, then look no further than the WNO’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
The Magic Flute is a trip. A dream. A surrealist adventure into another time and place. Within the opening minutes you can expect to see a giant sea creature poking its head through a door in the sky. Yes, that sort of trip.
And whilst the magic is effective enough to keep the audience smiling and wide-eyed as they revel in the antics of the unlikely hero Riccardo and his can’t-even-spell-hero companion Papageno, that magic does seem to lift a little when the cast start to speak. In English. With English accents. That’s not a dig aimed at the Welshness of the WNO, but in this reviewer’s personal inability to sustain disbelief in the opera unless it’s roared at him in lustful, luscious Latin.
But if anyone can do big, bright surrealist comedy, then the WNO can. And here again they prove to be at the top of the league table as they raise the roof on their home ground, the Wales Millennium Centre. So even if the comedy is not to your taste then the performances likely will be. Whether spoken or sung, the personalities seem to jump off the stage.
And then there is the magic of the music. The aria of the Queen of the Night could possibly be the most stunning piece of vocal phrasing ever written. And if you think that the flute is magic, then you’d have to write a new word, a new definition of the other-worldly, to explain what’s happening in the pipes of leading lady, Anna Siminska. The sound that came from within Siminska seemed physically impossible to achieve. And the tension that built with each return to the chorus, as the audience wondered how much further The Queen of the Night could push her lungs, lifted the show to that special territory reserved for great opera.
It’s worth the ticket price for that experience alone. Put simply, her vocals were magic.
words Jon Sutton
The Magic Flute is on tour until Sat 11 May, with further dates at the WMC on Wed 27 Feb and Fri 1 Mar. Tickets: from £12.50. Info: www.wno.org.uk