A director’s first loyalty should be to the composer and original librettist. Some additions and updating may enhance the audience’s experience, but directorial self indulgence ought to be resisted. So what should I make of Mozart’s glorious Magic Flute being set in a late 19th century hotel in Vienna, with the Queen of the Night transformed into the owner of the hotel and the mystical Masonic leader Sarastro portrayed as the head chef?
It is, of course, complete nonsense that a hotel owner should enlist the help of a passing prince to free her daughter who has been kidnapped by a chef in protest against the owner’s feminist beliefs. Why on earth didn’t she just sack the chef and call the police?
On the other hand, Mozart’s original opera is complete nonsense anyway, which may be why, despite my initial misgivings, I hugely enjoyed the sheer lunacy of this production by the French-Canadian director-designer duo André Barbe and Renaud Doucet.
With a good deal of puppetry, including the transformation of bedroom pillows into pecking birds on the entry of the birdcatcher Papageno, and the action moving rapidly between rooms portrayed by pen-and-ink drawn backdrops, and the Masonic testing ordeal turned into a sort of Masterchef and Master-washer-up ritual, the humour is original and unrestrained.
The cast also introduce some elements that add to the originality. German baritone Björn Bürger brings a rather heavy humour to the role, of Papageno, but that’s Vienna for you, I suppose. Russian soprano Sofia Fomina and American tenor David Portillo are delightful and sing beautifully as Pamina and Tamino but the real star of the production is Norwegian soprano Caroline Wettergreen as the Queen of the Night.
This role has some gloriously high notes, but Wettergreen astonishingly replaced them with some even higher ones. With all this originality, it was good to see British bass Brindley Sherratt holding it all together with a more traditional performance as Sarastro – in a chef’s hat, of course.
In terms of imagination and pure enjoyment, I am tempted to give this five stars, but I still have some doubts that Mozart and his librettist Emanuel Schikaneder would have approved.
Tickets: www.glyndebourne.com or 01273 815000 (various dates until August 24).
