ENTERTAINMENT

MOT's 'Magic Flute' lacks charm and, well, magic

Mark Stryker
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Mozart's "The Magic Flute" is impossible not to love, but delivering a production of "The Magic Flute" that's easy to love is altogether a different matter.

Tenor Joshua Dennis as Tamino in Michigan Opera Theatre's production of "The Magic Flute."

There are a lot contradictory impulses that have to be reconciled. The opera is at once a fantastic fairy tale, a lowbrow musical comedy and a highfalutin morality play steeped in the brotherhood-of-man ideals of freemasonry. As in all Mozart, the transparency of the score demands a delicate balance of precision and proportion. Elegance, intensity, humor, wisdom, wit, passion, restraint and charm are all required. Everybody knows it's hard, but the trick is to make it all look as easy as Fred Astaire gliding across the dance floor.

Michigan Opera Theatre's production of "The Magic Flute," which opened Saturday, did not rise to that level. Too often it labored as if it had two left feet. The production struggled to find a consistent musical and dramatic voice, a sense of effortless cohesion and airborne charm that could turn a workmanlike night in the opera house into an enchanting one. There were moments in which the singers and orchestra under conductor James Meena soared, but just not enough of them. There were a few laughs engineered by Garnett Bruce's stage direction, but just not enough of them.

The opening promised much. While the orchestral playing in the overture was a little ragged and coarse, the energy was high and the curtain rose on a sublime and moody forest of trees, stones and jagged peaks, evocatively lit in moody blues and populated by a red-eyed dragon with prodigious teeth, along with other delightful jungle animals. The sets, originally designed by Jorg Zimmerman for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, established a spellbinding setting for the story: Prince Tamino, accompanied by his comic sidekick Papageno, a bird catcher, embark on a quest to rescue Pamina, the abducted daughter of the mysterious Queen of the Night.

Gordon Bintner and Angela Theis appear as Pagageno and Papagena in Michigan Opera Theatre's production of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute.'

Pamina is in the custody of the sun priest Sarastro. Before the evening is out she and Tamino will be united in love, but not before Sarastro and his brethren put the couple through trials of fire and water. They survive with the help of a Magic Flute that leads them into the order of wisdom, light and truth. MOT employed the late critic Andrew Porter's winning English translation for both the spoken dialogue and music. It brings a real, if not quite vernacular, immediacy to the work.

Beyond the animals, the Chicago production features additional special effects that excited the senses, including a stone lion that dispensed wine, and a sailing ship, towed by a fanciful bird, that soared high above the stage carrying the three spirits dolled up like mini-Mozarts. But as the evening wore on, the pacing sagged, especially during the ritualistic scenes involving Sarastro and his minions. Vocal inconsistencies in the cast (nearly all making their MOT debuts) also kept the the production from taking off.

Though his voice projected warmth, tenor Joshua Dennis was generally bland as the hero Tamino. There weren't a lot of sparks between him and soprano Sylvia Schwartz as Pamina, though she brought the goods vocally, singing with silvery lyricism that gained emotional weight as she lost her prince and then reconnected with him joyously in "Tamino mein!"  As Sarastro, bass Jordan Bisch’s stentorian presence lacked the vocal power in the lowest region of his range to command the necessary attention during the priestly rituals. Tenor Julius Ahn,in green goblin makeup, brought expert diction to the oily role of Monostatos.

Papageno was pleasantly sung by bass-baritone Gordon Bintner, but he was a little monochromatic in a role whose comedic high jinks often steal the show. Near the end, when he finally meets his mate Papagena (sung sweetly by Angela Theis), Bintner showed off some truly funny rubber-leg moves. But otherwise the performance was restrained. A little shtick can go a long way, and I wished Bruce's stage direction would have gone for some broader laughs.

As the Queen of the Night, soprano So Young Park — who MOT had flown in only the day before to replace the previously announced Christina Poulitsi, who had taken ill — made a heroic impression. In her two brief but potent arias, Park nailed Mozart's fiendishly difficult high-note fireworks with precision while creating a Queen with especially focused intensity and icy-hot temperament. Meena's conducting overall was attentive and well-plotted, but like so much of the evening lacked that extra dose of inspiration that might have put more magic in this "Magic Flute."

Contact Mark Stryker: 313-222-6459 or mstryker@freepress.com  

Mozart's 'The Magic Flute'

Two out of four stars

Presented by Michigan Opera Theatre

7:30 p.m. Wed., Fri.-Sat., 2:30 p.m. Sun.

Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway

313-237-7464. www.michiganopera.org.

$29-$149