Different pleasures: Die Zauberflöte at the ROH
Die Zauberflöte
Royal Opera House
Stalls C1, £15 (staff offer)
12 September 2017
ROH page
How much is Die Zauberflöte an opera? For all its musico-dramatic wonderfulness I think it needs to be enjoyed in a different way from, say, La clemenza di Tito. You need to reset your expectations of drama: the story is a string of events of varying silliness strung together, the peril of one scene forgotten by the next. Even so, the music's vibrancy is still dependent on the characters, not only as delineated by the music at that moment but on their past music and their speech.
David McVicar's classic Royal Opera production, gloriously designed by John Macfarlane, for the most part provides a comfortable venue for enjoying all the quirky fun of Schikaneder's libretto without becoming mired in its narrative slack. I have a few long-standing gripes with it I want to get out of the way. I have always and suspect always will find the extended passages for the actors deeply cringe-worthy: we writhe in parallel, I with embarrassment and they as they pretend to be animals or do whatever it is they do in the trials. I'm also bothered each time by Papagena: why make her transform into a young girl not from an old hag but from a young girl? The only reason I can think of is that McVicar is trying to counterbalance the libretto's not overly complimentary depiction of women, but making Pamina a ditsy bimbo is an odd way to go about it.
End of gripes. In all other ways this is great show and a sound vehicle for the singers, who in this revival are never less than good and are sometimes ideal. Were I more agile I would have jumped somersaults when I learnt that Roderick Williams was cast as Papageno: could there be a more perfect match of performer and role? As expected, the combination overwhelmingly approaches the charm event horizon. There is a different kind of delight in Siobhan Stagg as Pamina, who was excellent as a last-minute stand-in in Orpheus at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2015 and has impressively blossomed since then. Her voice has a classy throatiness to it and is absolutely in tune, and she is astoundingly confidant as a performer. It's a gift of a role (musically, anyway) and she makes the most of it: I reckon she'll go far.
I had some qualms about conductor Julia Jones during the overture, where there were moments that felt to me a bit squeezbox-y. But what was I qualming for? Jones has extensive experience with this piece in this auditorium (maybe the Royal Opera should book her for something else some time…) and from the overture on tempos were well chosen and the ensemble with the singers was remarkable, particularly for an opening night. She coaxed uniformly strong performances from across the cast, including the superbly drilled Three Boys.
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