This version proposes that Sarastro and the Queen of the Night, now enemies, once lived in harmony, and that though each wants to rule the sky alone, they’re complementary to each other, like day and night, and halves of a whole. But there are hints that the sun figure, Sarastro, who has abducted Pamina from her mother, the Queen of the Night, is not the savior he appears to be. With lines like “Women do little but talk much,” Emanuel Schikaneder’s original libretto identifies men with reason and light and women with superstition and darkness. In his dream, he’s Tamino, Pamela is Pamina, birdwatcher Patrick is Papageno, and sulky Monty, who has the hots for Pamela, is Monostatos. Here, Tommy is bitten by a snake and begins to hallucinate. In fact, this is a thoughtfully reimagined “Magic Flute” that, well staged and exquisitely sung and acted, probes the serious subtext of Mozart’s singspiel.Īt the outset of your standard “Magic Flute,” Tamino is menaced by a serpent. When they come on stage and Pamela says, “I can’t believe we’re really here,” and Tommy answers, “Yeah, the Mayans were such an advanced civilization,” you might think you’re in for an evening of Mozart Lite.
In this English-language adaptation by Leon Major, Kelley Rourke, and John Conklin, college students Tommy, Pamela, Patrick, and Monty are studying Mayan ruins. Mozart in Mexico? That’s the premise of Boston Lyric Opera’s new world-premiere production of “The Magic Flute.” Forget the original Egyptian setting, and the odes to Isis and Osiris, and the paean to freemasonry.
0 kommentar(er)
