Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Mozart’s Magic Flute, in its story and subject matter and in the libretto of Emanuel Schikander, is very much a piece of its time, which contemporary stage directors often take as licence for the wildest flights of fancy.
Jim Manganello’s production for the young singers currently studying at the Alexander Gibson Opera School has a few of those – rather more than it is possible to keep track of really. With an austere, corporate-looking set and power-suited Three Ladies – whose Queen of the Night has even wider shoulder-pads and an office space that is the design highlight of the staging – where do the street costuming of the Three Boys, Pamina’s odd frock and the reality TV and airport immigration queue references fit in to his concept?
Rather more seriously really, the Monday evening performance got off to a decidedly ropey musical start. Conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren’s opening bars of the overture were very slow indeed and then rhythmically wobbly when the music picks up pace. The performance from the pit did improve, thankfully.
Into Manganello’s “topsy-turvy world”, Fraser Robinson’s Papageno arrives as a carry-out fried chicken delivery man. His consistent performance gave the audience something to cling onto through the show. He was also vocally rather more secure than Haydn Cullen’s Tamino, but in a year group that seems much stronger in the female voices than the men, Joshua McCullough probably took the honours with Sarastro’s demanding bass range.
Of the women, Stephanie Wong transcended her costuming as Pamina and Anna Marmion’s Queen of the Night aria was the highlight of the night. The two trios – Julia Calendar, Qi Liu, and Caitlin MacKenzie as the Ladies, and El Rose Trew-Rae, Elinor Gent, and Mollie Quinn as the Boys – were also very good, as was the chorus.
Like the principals, however, those singers did not always seem comfortable with their stage blocking, and those were not the only aspects of the production a little rough round the edges, not least the peculiar birdbath baptism of Tamino and Pamina at the work’s climax.
After that, Papageno finding his Papagena (Qi Lui again) came as a relief. Although they have some unnecessary challenging movement to execute, the fast-food couple certainly poulet off.
Keith Bruce