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This past Wednesday was New-Yorker night in Civic Center: the classical music critic, Alex Ross was promoting his new book at Herbst theater, and we attended the production of the Magic Flute designed by Gerald Scarfe, who regularly illustrates the magazine. Scarfe toned down his usually acidic satirical pen (see the sample from his website that we put after the jump) to cook up sets that are humorous, and respectful of Mozart’s intent.
The set, originally designed for the 92-93 season of the LA opera, and seen for the first time in SF, is build around a massive pyramid: Mozart was a Mason when he composed the Flute, and the pyramid is the Masonic symbol you’ll find for instance on your dollar bills. Scarfe’s pyramid turns and twists and opens up and breaks up into more pyramids, it’s a temple, it’s a mountain, it’s outside, it’s inside: who’d have thought it could be so modular? Plus, each face is a triangle, thus three sides, because everything the Magic Flute goes in three: the maids of the Queen of the Night, the angelic boys hovering above, the steps of initiation Tamino has to go through to be admitted in the brotherhood, the qualities required to be worthy of initiation (#1 is the ability to stay silent, as a Masonic loudmouth could have ended up persecuted at the time).
It’s refreshing to see Scarfe, so insolent with today’s powers that be, coming up with a set so reverent. Oh, sure, there are little inventions that would yank on Mozart’s chain, such as a menagerie of hilarious surrealist animals, half-penguin, half-turtle, or half-ostrich, half-giraffe, but Mozart seems to bring the positive, the joyful out of Scarfe. Mozart has a knack for improving karmic balance, which is exactly what the flute does in this opera.
Pictures courtesy of SF Opera/Terrence McCarthy. Above, Piotr Beczala, below Georg Zeppenfeld and Dina Kuznetsova (in white) and Erika Miklósa.
The flute player, Tamino, was sung by Piotr Bezcala, an absolutely charming tenor voice, rich and velvety. His acting did not really convince us as to why he had been elected to be brought into the ranks of the initiated: he looked puzzled about it himself. But he had the goods vocally and that’s enough. Tamino falls for Pamina, and we did too: Dina Kuznetsova totally wooed us. Her bright voice brought about a wide range of emotion and she had varied textures throughout, but always a clear pitch. And she's cute as pie.
We were totally impressed by Georg Zeppenfeld (Sarastro). His is a voice deep as cave, but even all the way to the bottom of the register, it comes out as warm and silky. It’s like molten bronze flowing out of a crucible. It’s no wonder he’s incarnating wisdom, wise men need to be re-assuring (thus manly, thus a bass) and yet comforting.
The Queen of the Night came in with a bang: in a dramatic entrance, she flies down from the ceiling, cajoling Tamino into helping her. Erkia Miklósa displayed a tad too much vibrato in this aria, but we’ll excuse her: it’s damn hard controlling your breath when you are hanging thirty feet high from two thin wires, and are concurrently praying the Almighty to let you see another morning and cursing your agent for signing you into this. She makes up for it in her later aria, der Hölle Rache, where her feet on the ground let her voice soar above, and not the other way around.
And rounding up the principals, Papageno (Christopher Maltman) offers all the comic relief you would expect. He is consistently excellent throughout, but we were a bit disappointed by his rather ribald take on the lovely Papageno-Papagena duet. Call us sentimental, but we would have enjoyed a bit more poetry. He is a bird catcher, for chrissake! Maltman was such a horny poney that he jump started the cue to his aria, so in a rush was he to claim Papagena (Rhoslyn Jones, in a 180 degree appearance from Appomatox, as joyful here as she was sorrowful there). Also lacking poetry: his magic bells, a battery-powered spinning accessory which looked like it came out of the Sharper Image catalog.
Donald Runnicles was in the pit, and we were slightly concerned the wheels were coming off in a frenzied overture, but everything hung on tight. We have to give props to a fun trio of Adler fellows, Elza van den Heever, Kendall Gladen and Katharine Tier, as the three Ladies of the Queen of the Night: three big booming voices for three enthusiastic singers trying good humoredly to outdo each other. We’d be surprised if they keep singing those small parts much longer.
The Magic Flute
War Memorial Opera House
5 more performances: Tue. October 23, 8 pm, Thu. October 25, 7:30 pm, Sun. October 28, 2 pm, Wed. October 31, 7:30 pm, Sat. November 3, 8 pm.
Box office: 864-3330
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