The Magic Flute Review!

The only thing better than comic opera, is opera seria with a bit of comedy thrown in.

Last night at the opening of the U of M spring opera, I came prepared to see a dramatic opera piece with beautiful vocals, but what I saw was light-hearted and jocular. Michigan’s voice majors reminded me why I keep coming back to each performance. The vocals were breathtaking, the sets were mystical, and the air about the Mendelssohn was rife with magic.

Prior to my viewing, I was familiar with some of the music, but not with the libretto.

I found the story to be enchanting. It begins in a little girl’s bedroom where she overhears her parents arguing just outside. To get away from the noise and sleep soundly, she plays with her dolls and takes shelter under her sheets. After a few minutes, she hears a sound and rumbling coming from her armoire. The rumbling becomes more and more frequent until a prince tumbles out of the armoire, followed closely by a dragon. He runs out of her room while a band of women defeat the dragon. They are women of the night who work for the Queen of the Night. They choose the prince to save a lost princess and choose the wacky local bird catcher to be his sidekick. The prince takes one look at the portrait of the princess and falls madly in love (no surprises there).

But then, after the fairytale-esque opening, the opera takes a cerebral turn. The land that the prince goes to is not one ruled by knights or wizards, but rather by scholars. The tone of the music turns intellectual and calculated when the prince encounters the wise king who has the princess incarcerated, if only to protect her from her overbearing mother, the queen.

Full of orange moons, draping seaweed, and yellow feathers, the opera is not as serious as one might think. Papageno (the wacky local bird catcher) provides many moments of comic relief, in contrast to the intense focus of prince (who takes a vow of silence for several numbers, in order to pass a test to win the hand of the princess).

The music is Mozart and was one of his final works before dying at age 35. The opera was not well-received in Berlin, but was adored in Prague. Probably the most famous number and the most impressive is Der Holle Rache (which I first heard in ‘Miss Congeniality‘ of all things). Der Holle Rache is the reason why opera tickets are so expensive and why opera singers are classically trained. It is the machine gun fire of the opera, sung by the lead female soprano, meaning that it is also light, airy and jaw-dropping.